1. religion and spirituality
2. christianity

The Normal
Christian Life
Watchman Nee
Table of Contents
Chapter
Preface
1.
The Blood of Christ
2.
The Cross of Christ
3.
The Path of Progress: Knowing
4.
The Path of Progress: Reckoning
5.
The Divide of the Cross
6.
The Path of Progress: Presenting Ourselves to God
7.
The Eternal Purpose
8.
The Holy Spirit
9.
The Meaning and Value of Romans Seven
10.
The Path of Progress: Walking in the Spirit
11.
One Body in Christ
12.
The Cross and the Soul Life
13.
The Path of Progress: Bearing the Cross
14.
The Goal of the Gospel
Preface
The ministry of Watchman Nee had been known in English only from
transcriptions of his spoken messages in tracts and magazine articles when,
in 1957, The Normal Christian Life was first published in Bombay and was at
once accorded a widespread welcome. Compiled from such records and
from private notebooks, this collection was edited in the author's absence,
and is based upon addresses originally given by Mr. Nee during and shortly
after a visit to Europe in 1938-39.
From the day in 1920 when, as a college student, he found the Lord
Jesus Christ as his Savior during the visit of a Chinese evangelist to his native
city of Foochow, Nee To-sheng gave himself without reserve to God for work
among his own people. Over the years he became widely known in China as
a gifted preacher of the Gospel and an original expositor of the Word, whose
ministry bore remarkable fruit in individuals and in many groups of spiritually
virile Christians.
This book sets forth something of his personal
understanding of the Christian life towards the end of those first years of
unrestricted service for his Lord.
In the twenty years that have followed, the Church of God in China has
passed through recurring periods of the severest testing with but brief
interludes of respite, and the author, together with many of those associated
with him in work and witness, has had his full share of these experiences right
up to the present. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that his ministry
should come to us today with freshness and power. Many have already
testified to the transformation this book has wrought in their lives through new
discoveries of the greatness of Christ and of his finished work on the cross.
The demand now for a new edition has made possible a further careful
revision of the text. Readers are again reminded that this is a compilation of
spoken addresses and not, despite superficial appearances, a systematic
treatise of Christian doctrine. It is to be approached not as an intellectual
exercise but as a message to the heart. Read thus it will, I believe, speak as
from the Spirit of God himself, with challenging power.
Angus I. Kinnear
London
1961
Chapter 1
The Blood of Christ
What is the normal Christian life? We do well at the outset to ponder this
question. The object of these studies is to show that it is something very
different from the life of the average Christian. Indeed a consideration of the
written Word of God—of the Sermon on the Mount for example—should lead
us to ask whether such a life has ever in fact been lived upon the earth, save
only by the Son of God himself. But in that last saving clause lies immediately
the answer to our question.
The apostle Paul gives us his own definition of the Christian life in
Galatians 2:20. It is "no longer I, but Christ." Here he is not stating something
special or peculiar—a high level of Christianity. He is, we believe, presenting
God's normal for a Christian, which can be summarized in the words: I live no
longer, but Christ lives his life in me.
God makes it quite clear in his Word that he has only one answer to
every human need—his Son, Jesus Christ. In all his dealings with us he
works by taking us out of the way and substituting Christ in our place. The
Son of God died instead of us for our forgiveness: he lives instead of us for
our deliverance. So we can speak of two substitutions—a Substitute on the
Cross who secures our forgiveness and a Substitute within who secures our
victory. It will help us greatly, and save us from much confusion, if we keep
constantly before us this fact, that God will answer all our questions in one
way and one way only, namely, by showing us more of his Son.
OUR DUAL PROBLEM: SINS AND SIN
We shall take now as a starting-point for our study of the normal Christian
life that great exposition of it which we find in the first eight chapters of the
Epistle to the Romans, and we shall approach our subject from a practical
and experimental point of view. It will be helpful first of all to point out a
natural division of this section of Romans into two, and to note certain striking
differences in the subject-matter of its two parts.
The first eight chapters of Romans form a self-contained unit. The fourand-a-half chapters from 1:1 to 5:11 form the first half of this unit and the
three-and-a-half chapters from 5:12 to 8:39 the second half. A careful reading
will show us that the subject-matter of the two halves is not the same. For
example, in the argument of the first section we find the plural word "sins"
given prominence. In the second section, however, this is changed, for while
the word "sins" hardly occurs once, the singular word "sin" is used again and
again and is the subject mainly dealt with. Why is this?
It is because in the first section it is a question of the sins I have
committed before God, which are many and can be enumerated, whereas in
the second it is a question of sin as a principle working in me. No matter how
many sins I commit, it is always the one sin-principle that leads to them. I
need forgiveness for my sins, but I need also deliverance from the power of
sin. The former touches my conscience, the latter my life. I may receive
forgiveness for all my sins, but because of my sin I have, even then, no
abiding peace of mind.
When God's light first shines into my heart my one cry is for forgiveness,
for I realize I have committed sins before him; but when once I have received
forgiveness of sins I make a new discovery, namely, the discovery of sin, and
I realize not only that I have committed sins before God but that there is
something wrong within. I discover that I have the nature of a sinner. There
is an inward inclination to sin, a power within that draws to sin. When that
power breaks out I commit sins. I may seek and receive forgiveness, but then
I sin once more. So life goes on in a vicious circle of sinning and being
forgiven and then sinning again. I appreciate the blessed fact of God's
forgiveness, but I want something more than that: I want deliverance. I need
forgiveness for what I have done, but I need also deliverance from what I am.
GOD'S DUAL REMEDY: THE BLOOD AND THE CROSS
Thus in the first eight chapters of Romans two aspects of salvation are
presented to us: firstly, the forgiveness of our sins, and secondly, our
deliverance from sin. But now, in keeping with this fact, we must notice a
further difference.
In the first part of Romans 1 to 8, we twice have reference to the Blood of
the Lord Jesus, in chapter 3:25 and in chapter 5:9. In the second, a new idea
is introduced in chapter 6:6, where we are said to have been "crucified" with
Christ. The argument of the first part gathers around that aspect of the work
of the Lord Jesus which is represented by "the Blood" shed for our justification
through "the remission of sins." This terminology is, however, not carried on
into the second section, where the argument centers now in the aspect of his
work represented by "the Cross," that is to say, by our union with Christ in his
death, burial and resurrection. This distinction is a valuable one. We shall
see that the Blood deals with what we have done, whereas the Cross deals
with what we are. The Blood disposes of our sins, while the Cross strikes at
the root of our capacity for sin. The latter aspect will be the subject of our
consideration in later chapters.
THE PROBLEM OF OUR SINS
We begin, then, with the precious Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and its
value to us in dealing with our sins and justifying us in the sight of God. This
is set forth for us in the following passages:
"All have sinned" (Rom. 3:23).
"God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood,
shall we be saved from the wrath of God through him" (Rom. 5:8, 9).
"Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, by his blood, to
show his righteousness, because of the passing over of the sins done
aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of his
righteousness at this present season: that he might himself be just, and the
justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3:24-26).
We shall have reason at a later stage in our study to look closely at the
real nature of the Fall and the way of recovery. At this point we will just
remind ourselves that when sin came in it found expression in an act of
disobedience to God (Rom. 5:19). Now we must remember that whenever
this occurs the thing that immediately follows is guilt.
Sin enters as disobedience, to create first of all a separation between
God and man whereby man is put away from God. God can no longer have
fellowship with him, for there is something now which hinders, and it is that
which is known throughout Scripture as "sin." Thus it is first of all God who
says, "They are all under sin" (Rom. 3:9). Then, secondly, that sin in man,
which henceforth constitutes a barrier to his fellowship with God, gives rise in
him to a sense of guilt—of estrangement from God. Here it is man himself
who, with the help of his awakened conscience, says, "I have sinned" (Luke
15:18). Nor is this all, for sin also provides Satan with his ground of
accusation before God, while our sense of guilt gives him his ground of
accusation in our hearts; so that, thirdly, it is "the accuser of the brethren"
(Rev. 12:10) who now says, "You have sinned."
To redeem us, therefore, and to bring us back to the purpose of God, the
Lord Jesus had to do something about these three questions of sin and of
guilt and of Satan's charge against us. Our sins had first to be dealt with, and
this was effected by the precious Blood of Christ. Our guilt has to be dealt
with and our guilty conscience set at rest by showing us the value of that
Blood. And finally, the attack of the enemy has to be met and his accusations
answered. In the Scriptures the Blood of Christ is shown to operate effectually
in these three ways, Godward, manward and Satanward.
There is thus an absolute need for us to appropriate these values of the
Blood if we are to go on. This is a first essential. We must have a basic
knowledge of the fact of the death of the Lord Jesus as our Substitute upon
the Cross, and a clear apprehension of the efficacy of his Blood for our sins,
for without this we cannot be said to have started upon our road. Let us look
then at these three matters more closely.
THE BLOOD IS PRIMARILY FOR GOD
The Blood is for atonement and has to do first with our standing before
God. We need forgiveness for the sins we have committed, lest we come
under judgment; and they are forgiven, not because God overlooks what we
have done but because he sees the Blood. The Blood is therefore not
primarily for us but for God. If I want to understand the value of the Blood I
must accept God's valuation of it, and if I do not know something of the value
set upon the Blood by God I shall never know what its value is for me. It is
only as the estimate that God puts upon the Blood of Christ is made known to
me by his Holy Spirit that I come into the good of it myself and find how
precious indeed the Blood is to me. But the first aspect of it is Godward.
Throughout the Old and New Testaments the word "blood" is used in
connection with the idea of atonement, I think over a hundred times, and
throughout it is something for God.
In the Old Testament calendar there is one day that has a great bearing
on the matter of our sins and that day is the Day of Atonement. Nothing
explains this question of sins so clearly as the description of that day. In
Leviticus 16 we find that on the Day of Atonement the blood was taken from
the sin offering and brought into the Most Holy Place and there sprinkled
before the Lord seven times. We must be very clear about this. On that day
the sin offering was offered publicly in the court of the tabernacle. Everything
was there in full view and could be seen by all. But the Lord commanded that
no man should enter the tabernacle itself except the high priest. It was he
alone who took the blood and, going into the Most Holy Place, sprinkled it
there to make atonement before the Lord. Why? Because the high priest
was a type of the Lord Jesus in his redemptive work (Heb. 9:11, 12), and so,
in figure, he was the one who did the work. None but he could even draw
near to enter in. Moreover, connected with his going in there was but one act,
namely, the presenting of the blood to God as something he had accepted,
something in which he could find satisfaction. It was a transaction between
the high priest and God in the Sanctuary, away from the eyes of the men who
were to benefit by it. The Lord required that. The Blood is therefore, in the
first place, not for ourselves but for him.
Earlier even than this there is described in Exodus 12:13 the shedding of
the blood of the passover lamb in Egypt for Israel's redemption. This is again,
I think, one of the best types in the Old Testament of our redemption. The
blood was put on the lintel and on the door-posts, whereas the meat, the flesh
of the lamb, was eaten inside the house; and God said: "When I see the
blood, I will pass over you." Here we have another illustration of the fact that
the blood was not meant to be presented to man but to God, for the blood
was put on the lintel and on the door-posts, where those feasting inside the
house would not see it.
GOD IS SATISFIED
It is God's holiness, God's righteousness, which demands that a sinless
life should be given for man. There is life in the Blood, and that Blood has to
be poured out for me, for my sins. God is the One who requires it to be so.
God is the One who demands that the Blood be presented, in order to satisfy
his own righteousness, and it is he who says: "When I see the blood, I will
pass over you." The Blood of Christ wholly satisfies God.
Now I desire to say a word at this point to my younger brethren in the
Lord, for it is here that we often get into difficulties. As unbelievers we may
have been wholly untroubled by our conscience until the Word of God began
to arouse us. Our conscience was dead, and those with dead consciences
are certainly of no use to God. But later, when we believed, our awakened
conscience may have become acutely sensitive, and this can constitute a real
problem to us. The sense of sin and guilt can become so great, so terrible, as
almost to cripple us, by causing us to lose sight of the true effectiveness of
the Blood. It seems to us that our sins are so real, and some particular sin
may trouble us so many times, that we come to the point where to us our sins
loom larger than the Blood of Christ.
Now the whole trouble with us is that we are trying to sense it; we are
trying to feel its value and to estimate subjectively what the Blood is for us.
We cannot do it; it does not work that way. The Blood is first for God to see.
We then have to accept God's valuation of it. In doing so we shall find our
salvation. If instead we try to come to a valuation by way of our feelings we
get nothing; we remain in darkness. No, it is a matter of faith in God's Word.
We have to believe that the Blood is precious to God because he says it is so
(1 Peter 1:18, 19). If God can accept the Blood as a payment for our sins and
as the price of our redemption, then we can rest assured that the debt has
been paid. If God is satisfied with the Blood, then the Blood must be
acceptable. Our valuation of it is only according to his valuation—neither
more nor less. It cannot, of course, be more, but it must not be less. Let us
remember that he is holy and he is righteous, and that a holy and righteous
God has the right to say that the Blood is acceptable in his eyes and has fully
satisfied him.
THE BELIEVER'S ACCESS TO GOD
The Blood has satisfied God; it must satisfy us also. It has therefore a
second value that is man-ward, in the cleansing of our conscience. When we
come to the Epistle to the Hebrews we find that the Blood does this. We are
to have "hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience" (Heb. 10:22).
This is most important. Look carefully at what it says. The writer does
not tell us that the Blood of the Lord Jesus cleanses our hearts, and then stop
there in his statement. We are wrong to connect the heart with the Blood in
quite that way. It may show a misunderstanding of the sphere in which the
Blood operates to pray, "Lord, cleanse my heart from sin by thy Blood." The
heart, God says, is "desperately sick" (Jer. 17:9), and he must do something
more fundamental than cleanse it: he must give us a new one.
We do not wash and iron clothing that we are going to throw away. As
we shall shortly see, the "flesh" is too bad to be cleansed; it must be crucified.
The work of God within us must be something wholly new. "A new heart also
will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you" (Ezek. 36:26).
No, I do not find it stated that the Blood cleanses our hearts. Its work is
not subjective in that way, but wholly objective, before God. True, the
cleansing work of the Blood is seen here in Hebrews 10 to have reference to
the heart, but it is in relation to the conscience. "Having our hearts sprinkled
from an evil conscience." What then is the meaning of this?
It means that there was something intervening between myself and God,
as a result of which I had an evil conscience whenever I sought to approach
him. It was constantly reminding me of the barrier that stood between myself
and him. But now, through the operation of the precious Blood, something
new has been effected before God which has removed that barrier, and God
has made that fact known to me in his Word. When that has been believed in
and accepted, my conscience is at once cleared and my sense of guilt
removed, and I have no more an evil conscience towards God.
Every one of us knows what a precious thing it is to have a conscience
void of offence in our dealings with God. A heart of faith and a conscience
clear of any and every accusation are both equally essential to us, since they
are interdependent. As soon as we find our conscience is uneasy, our faith
leaks away, and immediately we know we cannot face God. In order
therefore to keep going on with God we must know the up-to-date value of the
Blood. God keeps short accounts, and we are made nigh by the Blood every
day, every hour and every minute. It never loses its efficacy as our ground of
access if we will but lay hold upon it. When we enter the Most Holy Place, on
what ground dare we enter but by the Blood?
But I want to ask myself, am I really seeking the way into the presence of
God by the Blood or by something else? What do I mean when I say, "by the
Blood"? I mean simply that I recognize my sins, that I confess that I have
need of cleansing and of atonement, and that I come to God on the basis of
the finished work of the Lord Jesus. I approach God through his merit alone,
and never on the basis of my attainment; never, for example, on the ground
that I have been extra kind or patient today, or that I have done something for
the Lord this morning. I have to come by way of the Blood every time. The
temptation to so many of us when we try to approach God is to think that
because God has been dealing with us—because he has been taking steps to
bring us into something more of himself and has been teaching us deeper
lessons of the Cross—he has thereby set before us new standards, and that
only by attaining to these can we have a clear conscience before him. No! A
clear conscience is never based upon our attainment; it can only be based on
the work of the Lord Jesus in the shedding of his Blood.
I may be mistaken, but I feel very strongly that some of us are thinking in
terms such as these: "Today I have been a little more careful; today I have
been doing a little better; this morning I have been reading the Word of God in
a warmer way, so today I can pray better"! Or again, "Today I have had a
little difficulty with the family; I began the day feeling very gloomy and
depressed; I am not feeling too bright now; it seems there must be something
wrong; therefore the way is not clear for me to approach God."
What, after all, is your basis of approach to God? Do you come to him on
the uncertain ground of your feeling, the feeling that you may have achieved
something for God today? Or is your approach based on something far more
secure, namely, the fact that the Blood has been shed, and that God looks on
the Blood and is satisfied? Of course, were it conceivably possible for the
Blood to suffer any change, the basis of your approach to God might be less
trustworthy. But the Blood has never changed and never will. Your approach
to God is therefore always in boldness; and that boldness is yours through the
Blood and never through your personal attainment. Whatever be your
measure of attainment today or yesterday or the day before, as soon as you
make a conscious move into the Most Holy Place, immediately you have to
take your stand upon the safe and only ground of the shed Blood. Whether
you have had a good day or a bad day, whether you have consciously sinned
or not, your basis of approach is always the same—the Blood of Christ.
God's acceptance of that Blood is the ground upon which you may enter, and
there is no other.
As with many other facts of our Christian experience, this matter of
access to God has two phases, an initial and a progressive one. The former
is presented to us in Ephesians 2 and the latter in Hebrews 10. Initially, our
standing with God was secured by the Blood, for we are "made nigh in the
blood of Christ" (Eph. 2:13). But thereafter our ground of continual access is
still by the Blood, for the apostle exhorts us: "Having therefore ... boldness to
enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus ... let us draw near" (Heb.
10:19, 22). To begin with I was made nigh by the Blood, and to continue in
that new relationship I come through the Blood every time. It is not that I was
saved on one basis and that I now maintain my fellowship on another. You
say, "That is very simple; it is the A.B.C. of the Gospel." Yes, but the trouble
with many of us is that we have moved away from the A.B.C. We have
thought we had progressed and so could dispense with it, but we can never
do so. No, my initial approach to God is by the Blood, and every time I come
before him it is the same. Right to the end it will always and only be on the
ground of the precious Blood.
This does not mean at all that we should live a careless life, for we shall
shortly study another aspect of the death of Christ which shows us that
anything but that is contemplated. But for the present let us be satisfied with
the Blood, that it is there and that it is enough.
We may be weak, but looking at our weakness will never make us strong.
No trying to feel bad and doing penance will help us to be even a little holier.
There is no help there, so let us be bold in our approach because of the
Blood: "Lord, I do not know fully what the value of the Blood is, but I know that
the Blood has satisfied thee; so the Blood is enough for me, and it is my only
plea. I see now that whether I have really progressed, whether I have really
attained to something or not, is not the point. Whenever I come before thee, it
is always to be on the ground of the precious Blood." Then our conscience is
really clear before God. No conscience could ever be clear apart from the
Blood. It is the Blood that gives us boldness.
"No more conscience of sins": these are the tremendous words of
Hebrews 10:2. We are cleansed from every sin; and we may truly, with Paul,
echo the words of David: "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not
reckon sin" (Rom. 4:8).
OVERCOMING THE ACCUSER
In view of what we have said we can now turn to face the enemy, for
there is a further aspect of the Blood which is Satanward. Satan's most
strategic activity in this day is as the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10) and
it is as this that our Lord confronts him with his special ministry as High Priest
"through his own blood" (Heb. 9:12).
How then does the Blood operate against Satan? It does so by putting
God on the side of man against him. The Fall brought about a state of affairs
in man which gave Satan a footing within him, with the result that God was
compelled to withdraw himself. Man is now outside the garden—beyond
reach of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23)—because he is inwardly estranged
from God. Because of what man has done, there is that in him now which,
until it is removed, renders God morally unable to defend him. But the Blood
removes that barrier, and restores man to God and God to man. Man is in
favor now, and because God is on his side he can face Satan without fear.
You remember that verse in John's first Epistle—and this is the
translation of it I like best: "The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from every
sin." (1 John 1:7: Marginal reading of New Translation by J. N. Darby.) It is
not exactly "all sin" in the general sense, but every sin, every item. What
does it mean? Oh, it is a marvelous thing! God is in the light, and as we walk
in the light with him everything is exposed and open to that light, so that God
can see it all—and yet the Blood is able to cleanse from every sin. What a
cleansing! It is not that I have not a profound knowledge of myself, nor that
God has not a perfect knowledge of me. It is not that I try to hide something,
nor that God tries to overlook something. No, it is that he is in the light and I
too am in the light, and that there the precious Blood cleanses me from every
sin. The Blood is enough for that!
Some of us, oppressed by our own weakness, may at times have been
tempted to think that there are sins which are almost unforgivable. Let us
remember the word: "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from
every sin." Big sins, small sins, sins which may be very black and sins which
appear to be not so black, sins which I think can be forgiven and sins which
seem unforgivable, yes, all sins, conscious or unconscious, remembered or
forgotten, are included in those words: "every sin." "The blood of Jesus his
Son cleanses us from every sin," and it does so because in the first place it
satisfies God.
Since God, seeing all our sins in the light, can forgive them on the basis
of the Blood, what ground of accusation has Satan? Satan may accuse us
before him, but, "If God is for us, who is against us?" (Rom. 8:31). God points
him to the Blood of his dear Son. It is the sufficient answer against which
Satan has no appeal. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It
is God that justifieth; who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that
died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of
God, who also maketh intercession for us" (Rom. 8:33, 34). Thus God
answers his every challenge.
So here again our need is to recognize the absolute sufficiency of the
precious Blood. "Christ having come a high priest ... through his own blood,
entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption"
(Heb. 9:11, 12). He was Redeemer once. He has been High Priest and
Advocate for nearly two thousand years. He stands there in the presence of
God, and "he is the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 2:1, 2). Note the words
of Hebrews 9:14; "How much more shall the blood of Christ ... cleanse your
conscience." They underline the sufficiency of his ministry. It is enough for
God.
What then of our attitude to Satan? This is important, for he accuses us
not only before God but in your own conscience also. "You have sinned, and
you keep on sinning. You are weak, and God can have nothing more to do
with you." This is his argument. And our temptation is to look within and in
self-defense to try to find in ourselves, in our feelings or our behavior, some
ground for believing that Satan is wrong. Alternatively we are tempted to
admit our helplessness and, going to the other extreme, to yield to depression
and despair. Thus accusation becomes one of the greatest and most
effective of Satan's weapons. He points to our sins and seeks to charge us
with them before God, and if we accept his accusations we go down
immediately.
Now the reason why we so readily accept his accusations is that we are
still hoping to have some righteousness of our own. The ground of our
expectation is wrong. Satan has succeeded in making us look in the wrong
direction. Thereby he wins his point, rendering us ineffective. But if we have
learned to put no confidence in the flesh, we shall not wonder if we sin, for the
very nature of the flesh is to sin. Do you understand what I mean? It is
because we have not come to appreciate our true nature and to see how
helpless we are that we still have some expectation in ourselves, with the
result that, when Satan comes along and accuses us, we go down under it.
God is well able to deal with our sins; but he cannot deal with a man
under accusation, because such a man is not trusting in the Blood. The
Blood speaks in his favor, but he is listening instead to Satan. Christ is our
Advocate, but we, the accused, side with the accuser. We have not
recognized that we are unworthy of anything but death; that, as we shall
shortly see, we are only fit to be crucified anyway. We have not recognized
that it is God alone that can answer the accuser, and that in the precious
Blood he has already done so.
Our salvation lies in looking away to the Lord Jesus and in seeing that
the Blood of the Lamb has met the whole situation created by our sins and
has answered it. That is the sure foundation on which we stand. Never
should we try to answer Satan with our good conduct but always with the
Blood. Yes, we are sinful, but, praise God! the Blood cleanses us from every
sin. God looks upon the Blood whereby his Son has met the charge, and
Satan has no more ground of attack. Our faith in the precious Blood and our
refusal to be moved from that position can alone silence his charges and put
him to flight (Rom. 8:33, 34); and so it will be, right on to the end (Rev. 12:11).
Oh, what an emancipation it would be if we saw more of the value in God's
eyes of the precious Blood of his dear Son!
Following each chapter is a Study Guide to Watchman Nee‟s “The
Normal Christian Life” written by Harry Foster
Study Guide Introduction
The Normal Christian Life has become a Christian classic with world-wide
sales, not only in the original English but also in its many translations.
The Editor's Preface to the third edition points to some of the book's
unusual features. One is that this light on God's Word came to us from the
Far East, through a comparatively young Chinese who had spent the early
years of his life in evangelism and the establishing of Christian churches in his
own land. It thus provides striking evidence of how spiritual life and ministry
transcends racial and national frontiers.
Then there is the disclosure that Watchman Nee did not prepare this
book, and did not even know that it existed. The title is his, and it is
composed from spoken messages which he gave while here on a visit to the
West. I knew Nee personally and listened to these messages. It is therefore
a great joy and a privilege to offer some assistance to readers who propose to
study it.
May I reinforce Angus Kinnear's assurance that this was never intended
as a systematic treatise of Christian doctrine. Nee's only interest was the
enlightenment and spiritual growth of God's people. He spoke from his heart
to ours. Please keep this fact in mind as you study its chapters. Nothing
would have grieved God's servant more than to discover Christians basing
their outlook and procedure on 'Watchman Nee's teaching'. Yet this kind of
thing happens, the more so if a teacher has been greatly blessed in his
labors, as this one certainly had. Let there be no division, then, based on
what the author holds, but let the question always be: 'What does the Bible
say?' I feel confident that Nee would infinitely prefer to know of God's people
who disagreed with him (if that were necessary) and yet were growing in
Christ-likeness, than to have loyal partisans who used his name and teaching
as their court of appeal, and yet still remained carnal.
Of Watchman Nee's long years of seclusion in a Communist prison we
know nothing for certain. We only know that soon after his release he went to
be with Christ 'which is very far better'. When he was among us, however, we
saw in him no merely theoretical expositor, but a pattern of humble Christian
living. 'He was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.' Some
account of his life and work has been given us in Angus Kinnear's biography
Against the Tide. (Angus I. Kinnear, Against the Tide, Victory Press, 1973.
Revised edition (paperback) 1974.)
May I briefly explain this Study Guide? I have done my best to draw
attention to salient factors in each chapter by means of some preliminary
comments. Then after listing the chapter's sub-headings, I have added ten
questions designed to provoke thought and possible discussion. If these are
used in a study group then the leader should not form a mental image of the
correct answer in every case with the aim of leading the rest into concurrence
with him. Rather he should act as co-ordinator and reviewer, expecting light
to come through from God as the various topics are commented on or even
questioned. I say, 'questioned', because in some cases Nee's ideas may be
doubtful or imperfect. The important thing is to avoid contention, wrong
dogmatism and unreality, and to maintain hearts and minds always open to
the instruction and guidance of die Holy Spirit of God.
Harry Foster
Chapter One Comments and Questions
The Blood of Christ
We need to consult the Editor's Note to ensure that we do not make the
blood a technical term, implying something other or less than the death of
Christ on the Cross. In this chapter Nee uses Scripture to emphasize one
particular aspect of the redemptive work of the Savior, employing the term,
the blood, to explain the means by which the believer in Christ is delivered
from guilt. True to his governing motive, Nee concentrates on the practical
effects which result from a clear understanding of how the Lord's death
provides for cleansing and forgiveness. Christian living is not produced by
correct theories, nor by the right use of certain phrases, but by fellowship with
God. To know in daily experience the constant and lasting effects of the shed
blood of Jesus is to become a released personality, enjoying God, helping
others, and overcoming evil.
Bible Reading: Romans 3:19-26; Romans 5:1-11
Chapter Subheadings:
Our Dual Problem: Sins and Sin
God's Dual Remedy: The Blood and the Cross
The Problem of Our Sins
The Blood is Primarily for God
God is Satisfied
The Believer's Access to God
Overcoming the Accuser
Questions
1. Describe in your own words the dual problem of the Christian.
2. What are the three aspects of the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus?
3. Name the features of the transaction between the high priest and God
in the Sanctuary on the Day of Atonement.
4. 'The Blood wholly satisfies God.' Is it right, then, to be constantly
asking God for forgiveness? What might be better?
5. Where does the cleansing work of the Blood operate in a believer?
6. What is the difference between 'access to God' and feeling oneself to
be close to Him?
7. What are the two phases of access to God in a Christian's
experience?
8. How does the Blood work against Satan?
9. What is the reason for our ready acceptance of Satan's accusations?
10. Suggest ways by which God can show us more of His Son in order
to solve our problems.
Chapter 2
The Cross of Christ
We have seen that Romans 1 to 8 falls into two sections, in the first of
which we are shown that the Blood deals with what we have done, while in
the second we shall see that the Cross* deals with what we are. We need the
Blood for forgiveness; we need also the Cross for deliverance. We have dealt
briefly above with the first of these two and we shall move on now to the
second; but before we do so we will look for a moment at a few more features
of this passage which serve to emphasize the striking difference of theme and
subject-matter between the two halves.
*The author uses "the Cross" here and throughout these studies in a special
sense. Most readers will be familiar with the current use of the expression
"the Cross" to signify, firstly, the entire redemptive work accomplished
historically in the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus
himself (Phil. 2:8, 9), and secondly, in a wider sense, the union of believers
with him therein through grace (Rom. 6:4; Eph. 2:5, 6). Clearly in that use of
the term the operation of "the Blood" in relation to forgiveness of sins (as dealt
with in Chapter One of this book) is, from God's viewpoint, included (with all
that follows in these studies) as a part of the work of the Cross.
In this and the following chapters, however, the author is compelled, for lack
of an alternative term, to use "the Cross" in a more particular and limited
doctrinal sense in order to draw a helpful distinction, namely, that between
substitution and identification, as being, from the human angle, two separate
aspects of the doctrine of redemption. Thus the name of the whole is of
necessity used for one of its parts. The reader should bear in mind what
follows.—Ed.
SOME FURTHER DISTINCTIONS
Two aspects of the resurrection are mentioned in the two sections, in
chapters 4 and 6. In Romans 4:25 the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is
mentioned in relation to our justification: "Jesus our Lord ... was delivered up
for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification." Here the matter in
view is that of our standing before God. But in Romans 6:4 the resurrection is
spoken of as imparting to us new life with a view to a holy walk: "That like as
Christ was raised from the dead ... so we also might walk in newness of life."
Here the matter before us is behavior.
Again, peace is spoken of in both sections, in the fifth and eighth
chapters. Romans 5 tells of peace with God which is the effect of justification
by faith in his Blood: "Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (5:1 mg.). This means that, now that I
have forgiveness of sins, God will no longer be a cause of dread to me. I who
was an enemy to God have been "reconciled ... through the death of his Son"
(5:10). I very soon find, however, that I am going to be a great cause of
trouble to myself. There is still unrest within, for within me there is something
that draws me to sin. There is peace with God, but there is no peace with
myself. There is in fact civil war in my own heart. This condition is well
depicted in Romans 7 where the flesh and the spirit are seen to be in deadly
conflict within me. But from this the argument leads in chapter 8 to the inward
peace of a walk in the Spirit. "The mind of the flesh is death," because it "is
enmity against God," but "the mind of the spirit is life and peace" (Rom. 8:6,
7).
Looking further still we find that the first half of the section deals generally
speaking with the question of justification (see, for example, Romans 3:24-26;
4:5, 25), while the second half has as its main topic the corresponding
question of sanctification (see Rom. 6:19, 22). When we know the precious
truth of justification by faith we still know only half of the story. We still have
only solved the problem of our standing before God. As we go on, God has
something more to offer us, namely, the solution of the problem of our
conduct, and the development of thought in these chapters serves to
emphasize this. In each case the second step follows from the first, and if we
know only the first, then we are still leading a sub-normal Christian life. How
then can we live a normal Christian life? How do we enter upon it? We must,
of course, initially have forgiveness of sins, we must have justification, we
must have peace with God: these are our indispensable foundation. But with
that basis truly established through our first act of faith in Christ, it is yet clear
from the above that we must move on to something more.
So we see that objectively the Blood deals with our sins. The Lord Jesus
has borne them on the Cross for us as our Substitute and has thereby
obtained for us forgiveness, justification and reconciliation. But we must now
go a step further in the plan of God to understand how he deals with the sin
principle in us. The Blood can wash away my sins, but it cannot wash away
my "old man." It needs the Cross to crucify me. The Blood deals with the
sins, but the Cross must deal with the sinner.
You will scarcely find the word "sinner" in the first four chapters of
Romans. This is because there the sinner himself is not mainly in view, but
rather the sins he has committed. The word "sinner" first comes into
prominence only in chapter 5, and it is important to notice how the sinner is
there introduced. In that chapter a sinner is said to be a sinner because he is
born a sinner; not because he has committed sins. The distinction is
important. It is true that often, when a Gospel worker wants to convince a
man in the street that he is a sinner, he will use the favorite verse Romans
3:23, where it says that "all have sinned"; but this use of the verse is not
strictly justified by the Scriptures. Those who so use it are in danger of
arguing the wrong way round, for the teaching of Romans is not that we are
sinners because we commit sins, but that we sin because we are sinners.
We are sinners by constitution rather than by action. As Romans 5:19
expresses it: "Through the one man's disobedience the many were made [or
"constituted"] sinners."
How were we constituted sinners? By Adam's disobedience. We do not
become sinners by what we have done but because of what Adam has done
and has become. I speak English, but I am not thereby constituted an
Englishman. I am in fact a Chinese. So chapter 3 draws our attention to what
we have done—"all have sinned"—but it is nevertheless not because we have
done it that we become sinners.
I once asked a class of children, "Who is a sinner?" and their immediate
reply was, "One who sins." Yes, one who sins is a sinner, but the fact that he
sins is merely the evidence that he is already a sinner; it is not the cause.
One who sins is a sinner, but it is equally true that one who does not sin, if he
is of Adam's race, is a sinner too, and in need of redemption. Do you follow
me? There are bad sinners and there are good sinners, there are moral
sinners and there are corrupt sinners, but they are all alike sinners. We
sometimes think that if only we had not done certain things all would be well;
but the trouble lies far deeper than in what we do: it lies in what we are. A
Chinese may be born in America and be unable to speak Chinese at all, but
he is a Chinese for all that, because he was born a Chinese. It is birth that
counts. So I am a sinner because I am born in Adam. It is a matter not of my
behavior but of my heredity, my parentage. I am not a sinner because I sin,
but I sin because I come of the wrong stock. I sin because I am a sinner.
We are apt to think that what we have done is very bad, but that we
ourselves are not so bad. God is taking pains to show us that we ourselves
are wrong, fundamentally wrong. The root trouble is the sinner; he must be
dealt with. Our sins are dealt with by the Blood, but we ourselves are dealt
with by the Cross. The Blood procures our pardon for what we have done;
the Cross procures our deliverance from what we are.
MAN'S STATE BY NATURE
We come therefore to Romans 5:12-21. In this great passage, grace is
brought into contrast with sin and the obedience of Christ is set against the
disobedience of Adam. It is placed at the beginning of the second section of
Romans (5:12 to 8:39) with which we shall now be particularly concerned, and
its argument leads to a conclusion which lies at the very heart of our further
meditations. What is that conclusion? It is found in verse 19 already quoted:
"For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners,
even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous."
Here the Spirit of God is seeking to show us first what we are, and then how it
was we came to be what we are.
At the beginning of our Christian life we are concerned with our doing, not
with our being; we are distressed rather by what we have done than by what
we are. We think that if only we could rectify certain things we should be
good Christians, and we set out therefore to change our actions. But the
result is not what we expected. We discover to our dismay that it is
something more than just a case of trouble on the outside—that there is in
fact more serious trouble on the inside. We try to please the Lord, but find
something within that does not want to please him. We try to be humble, but
there is something in our very being that refuses to be humble. We try to be
loving, but inside we feel most unloving. We smile and try to look very
gracious, but inwardly we feel decidedly ungracious. The more we try to
rectify matters on the outside the more we realize how deep-seated is the
trouble. Then we come to the Lord and say, "Lord, I see it now! Not only
what I have done is wrong; I am wrong."
The conclusion of Romans 5:19 is beginning to dawn upon us. We are
sinners. We are members of a race of people who are constitutionally other
than what God intended them to be. By the Fall, a fundamental change took
place in the character of Adam whereby he became a sinner, one constitutionally unable to please God; and the family likeness which we all share
is no merely superficial one but extends to our inward character also. We
have been "constituted sinners." How did this come about? "By the
disobedience of one," says the apostle. Let me try to illustrate this by a
simple analogy.
My name is Nee. It is a fairly common Chinese name. How did I come
by it? I did not choose it. I did not go through the list of possible Chinese
names and select this one. That my name is Nee is in fact not my doing at
all, and, moreover, nothing I can do can alter it. I am a Nee because my
father was a Nee, and my father was a Nee because my grandfather was a
Nee. If I act like a Nee I am a Nee, and if I act unlike a Nee I am still a Nee.
If I become President of the Chinese Republic I am a Nee, or if I become a
beggar in the street I am still a Nee. Nothing I do or refrain from doing will
make me other than a Nee.
We are sinners, not because of ourselves but because of Adam. It is not
because I individually have sinned that I am a sinner, but because I was in
Adam when he sinned. Because by birth I come of Adam, therefore I am a
part of him. What is more, I can do nothing to alter this. I cannot, by
improving my behavior, make myself other than a part of Adam, and so a
sinner.
In China I was once talking in this strain and remarked, "We have all
sinned in Adam." A man said, "I don't understand," so I sought to explain it in
this way. "All Chinese trace their descent from Huang-ti," I said. "Over four
thousand years ago he had a war with Si-iu. His enemy was very strong, but
nevertheless Huang-ti overcame and slew him. After this Huang-ti founded
the Chinese nation. Four thousand years ago therefore our nation was
founded by Huang-ti. Now, what would have happened if Huang-ti had not
killed his enemy, but had been himself killed instead? Where would you be
now?" "There would be no me at all," he answered. "Oh, no! Huang-ti can
die his death and you can live your life." "Impossible!" he cried. "If he had
died, then I could never have lived, for I have derived my life from him."
Do you see the oneness of human life? Our life comes from Adam. If
your great-grandfather had died at the age of three, where would you be?
You would have died in him! Your experience is bound up with his. And in
just the same way, the experience of every one of us is bound up with that of
Adam. None can say, "I have not been in Eden," for potentially we all were
there when Adam yielded to the serpent's words. So we are all involved in
Adam's sin, and by being born "in Adam" we receive from him all that he
became as a result of his sin—that is to say, the Adam-nature which is the
nature of a sinner. We derive our existence from him, and because his life
became a sinful life, a sinful nature, therefore the nature which we derive from
him is also sinful. So, as we have said, the trouble is in our heredity, not in
our behavior. Unless we can change our parentage there is no deliverance
for us.
But it is in this very direction that we shall find the solution of our problem,
for that is exactly how God has dealt with it.
AS IN ADAM SO IN CHRIST
In Romans 5:12-21 we are not only told something about Adam; we are
told also something about the Lord Jesus. "As through the one man's
disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of
the one shall the many be made righteous." In Adam we receive everything
that is of Adam; in Christ we receive everything that is of Christ.
The terms "in Adam" and "in Christ" are too little understood by
Christians, and, at the risk of repetition, I wish again to emphasize by means
of an illustration the hereditary and racial significance of the term "in Christ."
This illustration is to be found in the letter to the Hebrews. Do you remember
that in the earlier part of that letter the writer is trying to show that Melchizedek is greater than Levi? You recall that the point to be proved is that
the priesthood of Christ is greater than the priesthood of Aaron who was of
the tribe of Levi. Now, in order to prove that, he has first to prove that the
priesthood of Melchizedek is greater than the priesthood of Levi, for the
simple reason that the priesthood of Christ is "after the order of Melchizedek"
(Heb. 7:14-17), while that of Aaron is, of course, after the order of Levi. If the
writer can demonstrate to us that in the eyes of God Melchizedek is greater
than Levi, then he has made his point. That is the issue, and he proves it in a
remarkable way.
He tells us in Hebrews chapter 7 that one day Abraham, returning from
the battle of the kings (Gen. 14), offered a tithe of his spoils to Melchizedek
and received from him a blessing. Inasmuch as Abraham did so, Levi is
therefore of less account than Melchizedek. Why? Because the fact that
Abraham offered tithes to Melchizedek means that Isaac "in Abraham" offered
to Melchizedek. But if that is true, then Jacob also "in Abraham" offered to
Melchizedek, which in turn means that Levi "in Abraham" offered to
Melchizedek. It is evident that the lesser offers to the greater (Heb. 7:7). So
Levi is less in standing than Melchizedek, and therefore the priesthood of
Aaron is inferior to that of the Lord Jesus. Levi at the time of the battle of the
kings was not yet even thought of. Yet he was "in the loins of his father"
Abraham, and, "so to say, through Abraham," he offered (Heb. 7:9, 10).
Now this is the exact meaning of "in Christ." Abraham, as the head of the
family of faith, includes the whole family in himself. When he offered to
Melchizedek, the whole family offered in him to Melchizedek. They did not
offer separately as individuals, but they were in him, and therefore in making
his offering he included with himself all his seed.
So we are presented with a new possibility. In Adam all was lost.
Through the disobedience of one man we were all constituted sinners. By
him sin entered and death through sin, and throughout the race sin has
reigned unto death from that day on. But now a ray of light is cast upon the
scene. Through the obedience of Another we may be constituted righteous.
Where sin abounded grace did much more abound, and as sin reigned unto
death, even so may grace reign through righteousness into eternal life by
Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 5:19-21). Our despair is in Adam; our hope is in
Christ.
THE DIVINE WAY OF DELIVERANCE
God clearly intends that this consideration should lead to our practical
deliverance from sin. Paul makes this quite plain when he opens chapter 6 of
his letter with the question: "Shall we continue in sin?" His whole being
recoils at the very suggestion. "God forbid!" he exclaims. How could a holy
God be satisfied to have unholy, sin-fettered children? And so "how shall we
any longer live therein?" (Rom. 6:1, 2). God has surely therefore made
adequate provision that we should be set free from sin's dominion.
But here is our problem. We were born sinners; how then can we cut off
our sinful heredity? Seeing that we were born in Adam, how can we get out
of Adam? Let me say at once, the Blood cannot take us out of Adam. There
is only one way. Since we came in by birth we must go out by death. To do
away with our sinfulness we must do away with our life. Bondage to sin came
by birth; deliverance from sin comes by death— and it is just this way of
escape that God has provided. Death is the secret of emancipation. "We ...
died to sin" (Rom. 6:2).
But how can we die? Some of us have tried very hard to get rid of this
sinful life, but we have found it most tenacious. What is the way out? It is not
by trying to kill ourselves, but by recognizing that God has dealt with us in
Christ. This is summed up in the apostle's next statement: "All we who were
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death" (Rom. 6:3).
But if God has dealt with us "in Christ Jesus" then we have got to be in
him for this to become effective, and that now seems just as big a problem.
How are we to "get into" Christ? Here again God comes to our help. We
have in fact no way of getting in, but, what is more important, we need not try
to get in, for we are in. What we could not do for ourselves, God has done for
us. He has put us into Christ. Let me remind you of 1 Corinthians 1:30. I
think that is one of the best verses of the whole New Testament: "Ye are in
Christ." How? "Of him [that is, "of God"] are ye in Christ." Praise God! It is
not left to us either to devise a way of entry or to work it out. We need not
plan how to get in. God has planned it; and he has not only planned it but he
has also performed it. "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus." We are in; therefore
we need not try to get in. It is a divine act, and it is accomplished.
Now if this is true, certain things follow. In the illustration from Hebrews 7
which we considered above we saw that "in Abraham" all Israel—and
therefore Levi who was not yet born—offered tithes to Melchizedek. They did
not offer separately and individually, but they were in Abraham when he
offered, and his offering included all his seed. This, then, is a true figure of
ourselves as "in Christ." When the Lord Jesus was on the Cross all of us
died—not individually, for we had not yet been born—but, being in him, we
died in him. "One died for all, therefore all died" (2 Cor. 5:14). When he was
crucified all of us were crucified there with him.
Many a time when preaching in the villages of China one has to use very
simple illustrations for deep divine truth. I remember once I took up a small
book and put a piece of paper into it, and I said to those very simple folk,
"Now look carefully. I take a piece of paper. It has an identity of its own, quite
separate from this book. Having no special purpose for it at the moment I put
it into the book. Now I do something with the book. I mail it to Shanghai. I do
not mail the paper, but the paper has been put into the book. Then where is
the paper? Can the book go to Shanghai and the paper remain here? Can
the paper have a separate destiny from the book? No! Where the book goes
the paper goes. If I drop the book in the river the paper goes too, and if I
quickly take it out again I recover the paper also. Whatever experience the
book goes through the paper goes through with it, for it is still there in the
book."
"Of him are ye in Christ Jesus." The Lord God himself has put us in
Christ, and in his dealing with Christ, God has dealt with the whole race. Our
destiny is bound up with his. What he has gone through we have gone
through, for to be "in Christ" is to have been identified with him in both his
death and resurrection. He was crucified: then what about us? Must we ask
God to crucify us? Never! When Christ was crucified we were crucified; and
his crucifixion is past, therefore ours cannot be future. I challenge you to find
one text in the New Testament telling us that our crucifixion is in the future.
All the references to it are in the Greek aorist, which is the "once-for-all"
tense, the "eternally past" tense. (See: Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20; 5:24; 6:14.) And
just as no man could ever commit suicide by crucifixion, for it were a physical
impossibility to do so, so also, in spiritual terms, God does not require us to
crucify ourselves. We were crucified when Christ was crucified, for God put
us there in him. That we have died in Christ is not merely a doctrinal position,
it is an eternal and indisputable fact.
HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION
REPRESENTATIVE AND INCLUSIVE
The Lord Jesus, when he died on the Cross, shed his Blood, thus giving
his sinless life to atone for our sin and to satisfy the righteousness and
holiness of God. To do so was the prerogative of the Son of God alone. No
man could have a share in that. The Scripture has never told us that we shed
our blood with Christ. In his atoning work before God he acted alone; no
other could have a part. But the Lord did not die only to shed his Blood: he
died that we might die. He died as our Representative. In his death he
included you and me.
We often use the terms "substitution" and "identification" to describe
these two aspects of the death of Christ. Now many a time the use of the
word "identification" is good. But identification would suggest that the thing
begins from our side: that I try to identify myself with the Lord. I agree that the
word is true, but it should be used later on. It is better to begin with the fact
that the Lord included me in his death. It is the "inclusive" death of the Lord
which puts me in a position to identify myself, not that I identify myself in order
to be included. It is God's inclusion of me in Christ that matters. It is
something God has done. For that reason those two New Testament words
"in Christ" are always very dear to my heart.
The death of the Lord Jesus is inclusive. The resurrection of the Lord
Jesus is alike inclusive. We have looked at the first chapter of 1 Corinthians
to establish the fact that we are "in Christ Jesus." Now we will go to the end
of the same letter to see something more of what this means. In 1
Corinthians 15:45 & 47 two remarkable names or titles are used of the Lord
Jesus. He is spoken of there as "the last Adam" and he is spoken of too as
"the second man." Scripture does not refer to him as the second Adam but as
"the last Adam"; nor does it refer to him as the last Man, but as "the second
man." The distinction is to be noted, for it enshrines a truth of great value.
As the last Adam, Christ is the sum total of humanity; as the second Man
he is the Head of a new race. So we have here two unions, the one relating
to his death and the other to his resurrection. In the first place his union with
the race as "the last Adam" began historically at Bethlehem and ended at the
cross and the tomb. In it he gathered up into himself all that was in Adam and
took it to judgment and death. In the second place our union with him as "the
second man" begins in resurrection and ends in eternity—which is to say, it
never ends—for, having in his death done away with the first man in whom
God's purpose was frustrated, he rose again as Head of a new race of men,
in whom that purpose will at length be fully realized.
When therefore the Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross, he was
crucified as the last Adam. All that was in the first Adam was gathered up and
done away in him. We were included there. As the last Adam he wiped out
the old race; as the second Man he brings in the new race. It is in his
resurrection that he stands forth as the second Man, and there too we are
included. "For if we have become united with him by the likeness of his
death, we shall be also by the likeness of his resurrection" (Rom. 6:5). We
died in him as the last Adam; we live in him as the second Man. The Cross is
thus the mighty act of God which translates us from Adam to Christ.
Chapter Two Comments and Questions
The Cross of Christ
As we read this chapter we may wish to intrude with theoretical questions
or problems based on our personal experiences. We must limit these desires
and concentrate on the actual statements before us. Nee affirms that our
wrong thoughts and deeds are but the expression of a wrong or sinful nature.
This confronts us with a dilemma which faced God as well as man,
namely: 'How can corrupt human nature ever be changed?' The answer is, of
course, that it cannot. It must be condemned and rejected; it must be
crucified and buried. So Nee points out that Christ's death on the Cross was
substitutionary in the fullest sense, i.e. it was an inclusive death. God solved
His problem—and ours—by having us crucified.
Presently we shall be allowed to ask questions about the practical
outworking of these great truths. How does the Cross really deliver us from
the power of a sinful nature passed on through the race? How can we get the
benefits of being 'in Christ'? That must be left to the next chapters. This
study calls for thoughtful and believing acceptance of the Scriptural truths
which are set out here. Before we enquire about the experiential aspect, we
need to allow the Spirit and the Word to convince us of what the Cross has
provided.
Bible Reading: Romans 5.12-21; Romans 6.1-6
Chapter Subheadings:
Some Further Distinctions
Man's State by Nature
As in Adam So in Christ
The Divine Way of Deliverance
His Death and Resurrection Representative and Inclusive
Questions
1. What are the two realms of peace which the Christian should know?
2. What makes a man a sinner?
3. 'There are good sinners.’ 'What does Nee mean by this statement?
4. What should be the conclusion reached by the reader of Romans
5.19?
5. What is the only basis of deliverance from the sinful nature?
6. In contrast with the uprising of the old nature, have you ever
experienced spontaneous uprisings of the new life in Christ which
confirm Nee's teaching as to what it means to be 'in Christ'?
7. How has God dealt with our problem of being 'in Adam':
(a) Negatively?
(b) Positively?
8. Is it possible to crucify ourselves?
9. Two titles applied to Christ are: 'the last Adam' and 'the second Man'.
Describe the different emphases which these imply.
10. Would Paul's assertions about the New Man have been possible
apart from the Virgin Birth?
Chapter 3
The Path of Progress: Knowing
Our old history ends with the Cross; our new history begins with the
resurrection. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are
passed away; behold they are become new" (2 Cor. 5:17). The Cross
terminates the first creation, and out of death there is brought a new creation
in Christ, the second Man. If we are "in Adam" all that is in Adam necessarily
devolves upon us; it becomes ours involuntarily, for we have to do nothing to
get it. There is no need to make up our minds to lose our temper or to commit
some other sin; sin comes to us freely and despite ourselves. In a similar way,
if we are "in Christ" all that is in Christ comes to us by free grace, without
effort on our part but on the ground of simple faith.
But to say that all we need comes to us in Christ by free grace, though
true enough, may seem unpractical. How does it work out in life? How does
it become real in our experience?
As we study chapters 6, 7 and 8 of Romans we shall discover that the
conditions of living the normal Christian life are fourfold. They are: (a)
Knowing, (b) Reckoning, (c) Presenting ourselves to God, and (d) Walking in
the Spirit, and they are set forth in that order. If we would live that life we
shall have to take all four of these steps; not one nor two nor three, but all
four. As we study each of them we shall trust the Lord by his Holy Spirit to
illumine our understanding; and we shall seek his help now to take the first big
step forward.
OUR DEATH WITH CHRIST A HISTORIC FACT
Romans 6:1-11 is the passage before us now. In these verses it is made
clear that the death of the Lord Jesus is representative and inclusive. In his
death we all died. None of us can progress spiritually without seeing this.
Just as we cannot have justification if we have not seen him bearing our sins
on the Cross, so we cannot have sanctification if we have not seen him
bearing us on the Cross. Not only have our sins been laid on him but we
ourselves have been put into him.
How did you receive forgiveness? You realized that the Lord Jesus died
as your Substitute and bore your sins upon himself, and that his Blood was
shed to cleanse away your defilement. When you saw your sins all taken
away on the Cross, what did you do? Did you say, "Lord Jesus, please come
and die for my sins?" No, you did not pray at all; you only thanked the Lord.
You did not beseech him to come and die for you, for you realized that he had
already done so.
But what is true of your forgiveness is also true of your deliverance. The
work is done. There is no need to pray, but only to praise. God has put us all
in Christ, so that when Christ was crucified, we were crucified also. Thus
there is no need to pray, "I am a very wicked person; Lord, please crucify me."
That is all wrong. You did not pray about your sins; why pray now about
yourself? Your sins were dealt with by his Blood, and you were dealt with by
his Cross. It is an accomplished fact. All that is left for you to do is praise the
Lord that when Christ died you died also; you died with him. Praise him for it,
and live in the sight of it. "Then believed they his words: they sang his praise"
(Psalm 106:12).
Do you believe in the death of Christ? Of course you do. But the same
Holy Scripture that says he died for us says also that we died with him. Look
at it again: "Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). That is the first statement, and that
is clear enough; but is this any less clear? "Our old man was crucified with
him" (Rom. 6:6). "We died with Christ" (Rom. 6:8).
When are we crucified with him? What is the date of our old man's
crucifixion? Is it tomorrow? Yesterday? Today? In order to answer this it
may help us if for a moment I turn Paul's statement round and say, "Christ
was crucified with [i.e., at the same time as] our old man." Some of you came
here in twos. You traveled to this place together. You might say, "My friend
came here with me," but you might just as truly say, "I came here with my
friend." Had one of you come three days ago and the other only today you
could not possibly say that; but having come together you can make either
statement with equal truth, because both are statements of fact. So also in
historic fact we can say, reverently but with equal accuracy, "I was crucified
when Christ was crucified" or "Christ was crucified when I was crucified," for
they are not two historical events, but one. My crucifixion was "with him."
(The expression "with him" in Romans 6:6 carries of course a doctrinal as well
as a historical (or temporal) sense. It is only in the historical sense that the
statement is reversible.—W.N.) Has Christ been crucified? Then can I be
otherwise? And if he was crucified nearly two thousand years ago, and I with
him, can my crucifixion be said to take place tomorrow? Can his be past and
mine present or future? Praise the Lord, when he died on the Cross I died
with him. He not only died in my stead, but he bore me with him to the Cross,
so that when he died I also died. And if I believe in the death of the Lord
Jesus, then I can believe in my own death just as surely as I believe in his.
Why do you believe that the Lord Jesus died? What is your ground for
that belief? Is it that you feel he has died? No, you have never felt it. You
believe it because the Word of God tells you so. When the Lord was
crucified, two thieves were crucified at the same time. You do not doubt that
they were crucified with him, either, because the Scripture says so quite
plainly.
You believe in the death of the Lord Jesus and you believe in the death
of the thieves with him. Now what about your own death? Your crucifixion is
more intimate than theirs. They were crucified at the same time as the Lord
but on different crosses, whereas you were crucified on the selfsame cross as
he, for you were in him when he died. How can you know? You can know for
the one sufficient reason that God has said so. It does not depend on your
feelings. If you feel that Christ has died, he has died; and if you do not feel
that he has died, he has died. If you feel that you have died, you have died;
and if you do not feel that you have died, you have nevertheless just as surely
died. These are divine facts. That Christ has died is a fact, that the two
thieves have died is a fact, and that you have died is a fact also. Let me tell
you, You have died! You are done with! You are ruled out! The self you
loathe is on the Cross in Christ. And "he that is dead is freed from sin" (Rom.
6:7, A.V.). This is the Gospel for Christians.
Our crucifixion can never be made effective by will or by effort, but only
by accepting what the Lord Jesus did on the Cross. Our eyes must be
opened to see the finished work of Calvary. Some of you, prior to your
salvation, may have tried to save yourselves. You read the Bible, prayed,
went to Church, gave alms. Then one day your eyes were opened and you
saw that a full salvation had already been provided for you on the Cross. You
just accepted that and thanked God, and peace and joy flowed into your
heart. And now the good news is that sanctification is made possible for you
on exactly the same basis as that initial salvation. You are offered
deliverance from sin as no less a gift of God's grace than was the forgiveness
of your sins.
For God's way of deliverance is altogether different from man's way.
Man's way is to try to suppress sin by seeking to overcome it; God's way is to
remove the sinner. Many Christians mourn over their weakness, thinking that
if only they were stronger all would be well. The idea that, because failure to
lead a holy life is due to our impotence, something more is therefore
demanded of us, leads naturally to this false conception of the way of
deliverance. If we are preoccupied with the power of sin and with our inability
to meet it, then we naturally conclude that to gain the victory over sin we must
have more power. "If only I were stronger," we say, "I could overcome my
violent outbursts of temper," and so we plead with the Lord to strengthen us
that we may exercise more self-control.
But this is altogether a fallacy; it is not Christianity. God's means of
delivering us from sin is not by making us stronger and stronger, but by
making us weaker and weaker. That is surely rather a peculiar way of victory,
you say; but it is the divine way. God sets us free from the dominion of sin,
not by strengthening our old man but by crucifying him; not by helping him to
do anything but by removing him from the scene of action.
For years, maybe, you have tried fruitlessly to exercise control over
yourself, and perhaps this is still your experience; but when once you see the
truth you will recognize that you are indeed powerless to do anything, but that
in setting you aside altogether God has done it all. Such a discovery brings
human striving and self-effort to an end.
THE FIRST STEP: "KNOWING THIS ..."
The normal Christian life must begin with a very definite "knowing," which
is not just knowing something about the truth nor understanding some
important doctrine. It is not an intellectual knowledge at all, but an opening of
the eyes of the heart to see what we have in Christ.
How do you know your sins are forgiven? Is it because your pastor told
you so? No, you just know it. If I ask you how you know, you simply answer,
"I know it!" Such knowledge comes by divine revelation. It comes from the
Lord himself. Of course the fact of forgiveness of sins is in the Bible, but for
the written Word of God to become a living Word from God to you he had to
give you "a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him" (Eph.
1:17). What you needed was to know Christ in that way, and it is always so.
So there comes a time, in regard to any new apprehension of Christ, when
you know it in your own heart, you "see" it in your spirit. A light has shined
into your inner being and you are wholly persuaded of the fact. What is true
of the forgiveness of your sins is no less true of your deliverance from sin.
When once the light of God dawns upon your heart you see yourself in Christ.
It is not now because someone has told you, and not merely because
Romans 6 says so. It is something more even than that. You know it
because God has revealed it to you by his Spirit. You may not feel it; you
may not understand it; but you know it, for you have seen it. Once you have
seen yourself in Christ, nothing can shake your assurance of that blessed
fact.
If you ask a number of believers who have entered upon the normal
Christian life how they came by their experience, some will say in this way
and some will say in that. Each stresses his own particular way of entering in
and produces Scripture to support his experience; and unhappily many
Christians are using their special experiences and their special Scriptures to
fight other Christians. The fact of the matter is that, while Christians may
enter into the deeper life by different ways, we need not regard the
experiences or doctrines they stress as mutually exclusive, but rather
complementary. One thing is certain, that any true experience of value in the
sight of God must have been reached by way of a new discovery of the
meaning of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus. That is a crucial test and
a safe one.
And here in our passage Paul makes everything depend upon such a
discovery. "Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the
body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage
to sin" (Rom. 6:6).
DIVINE REVELATION ESSENTIAL TO KNOWLEDGE
So our first step is to seek from God a knowledge that comes by
revelation—a revelation, that is to say, not of ourselves but of the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. When Hudson Taylor, the
founder of the China Inland Mission, entered into the normal Christian life it
was thus that he did so. You remember how he tells of his long-standing
problem of how to live "in Christ," how to draw the sap out of the Vine into
himself. For he knew that he must have the life of Christ flowing out through
him and yet felt he had not got it, and he saw clearly enough that his need
was to be found in Christ. "I knew," he said, writing to his sister from Chinkiang in 1869, "that if only I could abide in Christ, all would be well, but I
couLd not."
The more he tried to get in the more he found himself slipping out, so to
speak, until one day light dawned, revelation came and he saw. This is how
he describes it.
"Here, I feel, is the secret: not asking how I am to get sap out of the
Vine into myself, but remembering that Jesus is the Vine—the root, stem,
branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit, all indeed."
Then, quoting a friend's words that had helped him, he continues:
"I have not got to make myself a branch. The Lord Jesus tells me I am
a branch. I am part of him and I have just to believe it and act upon it. I
have seen it long enough in the Bible, but I believe it now as a living
reality."
It was as though something which had indeed been true all the time had now
suddenly become true in a new way to him personally, and he writes to his
sister again:
"I do not know how far I may be able to make myself intelligible about
it, for there is nothing new or strange or wonderful—and yet, all is new!
In a word, 'whereas once I was blind, now I see.'... I am dead and buried
with Christ—aye, and risen too and ascended.... God reckons me so, and
tells me to reckon myself so. He knows best.... Oh, the joy of seeing this
truth—I do pray that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened,
that you may know and enjoy the riches freely given us in Christ." (The
quotations are from Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission by Dr.
and Mrs. Howard Taylor, Chapter 12, "The Exchanged Life." The whole
passage should be read.—Ed.)
Oh, it is a great thing to see that we are in Christ! Think of the
bewilderment of trying to get into a room in which you already are! Think of
the absurdity of asking to be put in! If we recognize the fact that we are in, we
make no effort to enter. If we had more revelation, we should have fewer
prayers and more praises. We spend so much time praying for ourselves just
because we are blind to what God has done.
I remember one day in Shanghai I was talking with a brother who was
very exercised concerning his spiritual state. He said, "So many are living
beautiful, saintly lives. I am ashamed of myself. I call myself a Christian, and
yet when I compare myself with others I feel I am not one at all. I want to
know this crucified life, this resurrection life, but I do not know it, and I see no
way of getting there." Another brother was with us, and the two of us had
been talking for two hours or so, trying to get the man to see that he could not
have anything apart from Christ, but without success. Said our friend, "The
best thing a man can do is pray." "But if God has already given you
everything, what do you need to pray for?" we asked. "He hasn't," the man
replied, "for I am still losing my temper, still failing constantly; so I must pray
more." "Well," we said, "do you get what you pray for?" "I am sorry to say
that I do not get anything," he replied. We tried to point out that, just as he
had done nothing for his justification, so he need do nothing for his
sanctification.
Just then a third brother, much used of the Lord, came in and joined us.
There was a thermos flask on the table, and this brother picked it up and said,
"What is this?" "A thermos flask." "Well, you just imagine for a moment that
this thermos flask can pray, and that it starts praying something like this:
'Lord, I want very much to be a thermos flask. Wilt thou make me to be a
thermos flask? Lord, give me grace to become a thermos flask. Do please
make me one!' What will you say?" "I do not think even a thermos flask
would be so silly," our friend replied. "It would be nonsense to pray like that; it
is a thermos flask!" Then my brother said, "You are doing the same thing.
God in times past has already included you in Christ. When he died, you
died; when he lived, you lived. Now today you cannot say, 'I want to die; I
want to be crucified; I want to have resurrection life.' The Lord simply looks at
you and says, 'You are dead! You have new life!' All your praying is just as
absurd as that of the thermos flask. You do not need to pray to the Lord for
anything; you merely need your eyes opened to see that he has done it all."
That is the point. We need not work to die, we need not wait to die, we
are dead. We only need to recognize what the Lord has already done, and to
praise him for it. Light dawned for that man. With tears in his eyes he said,
"Lord, I praise thee that thou hast already included me in Christ. All that is his
is mine!" Revelation had come, and faith had something to lay hold of; and if
you could have met that brother later on, what a change you would have
found!
THE CROSS GOES TO THE ROOT OF OUR PROBLEM
Let me remind you again of the fundamental nature of that which the Lord
has done on the Cross. I feel I cannot press this point too much for we must
see it.
Suppose, for the sake of illustration, that the government of your country
should wish to deal drastically with the question of strong drink and should
decide that the whole country was to go "dry," how could the decision be
carried into effect? How could we help? If we were to search every shop and
house throughout the land and smash all the bottles of wine or beer or brandy
we came across, would that meet the case? Surely not. We might thereby
rid the land of every drop of alcoholic liquor it contains, but behind those
bottles of strong drink are the factories that produce them, and if we only deal
with the bottles and leave the factories untouched, production will still
continue and there is no permanent solution of the problem. No, the drinkproducing factories, the breweries and distilleries throughout the land, must
be closed down if the drink question is ever to be effectively and permanently
settled.
We are the factory; our actions are the products. The Blood of the Lord
Jesus dealt with the question of the products, namely, our sins. So the
question of what we have done is settled, but would God have stopped there?
What about the question of what we are? Our sins were produced by us.
They have been dealt with, but how are we going to be dealt with? Do you
believe the Lord would cleanse away all our sins and then leave us to get rid
of the sin-producing factory? Do you believe that, having put away the goods
produced, he would leave us to deal by ourselves with the source of
production?
To ask this question is but to answer it. Of course he has not done half
the work and left the other half undone. No, he has done away with the
goods and also made a clean sweep of the factory that produces the goods.
The finished work of Christ really has gone to the root of our problem and
dealt with it. There are no half measures with God. He has made full
provision for sin's rule to be utterly broken.
"Knowing this," says Paul, "that our old man was crucified with him, that
the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in
bondage to sin" (Rom. 6:6). "Knowing this?" Yes, but do you know it? "Or
are ye ignorant?" (Rom. 6:3). May the Lord graciously open our eyes.
Chapter Three Comments and Questions
The Path of Progress: Knowing
There are five chapters under the general heading of The Path of
Progress. They are three, four, six, ten and thirteen. Knowing comes first.
This chapter is largely devoted to a re-affirmation of the statements which
occupied Chapter Two. We are reminded that we must understand the
inclusive nature of Christ's death if we are to experience its power. Nee
stresses the historical character of the crucifixion. Whatever my experience
may or may not be, I must accept God's stated fact, namely that it was I who
was crucified when the Lord Jesus died on the Cross. The same Bible which
tells us that Christ died for us insists that we were together with Him in that
crucifixion. Nee calls this: 'The Gospel for Christians', and reminds us that if
we truly believe this we will be spared the frustrating exercise of trying to
dominate our old man by the self-effort of repression.
The same faith approach is advocated for sanctification as for
justification. Some may feel that Nee's statements are too sweeping for them,
and argue that this is an over-simplification of the profound subject of holy
living. We must wait to see what he has to say in subsequent chapters.
Bible Reading: Romans 6:1-11; Galatians 2:20
Chapter Sub-headings
Our Death with Christ a Historic Fact
The First Step: 'Knowing This. ..'
Divine Revelation Essential to Knowledge
The Cross Goes to the Root of Our Problem
Questions
1. Name the four steps on the path of spiritual progress.
2. Are you convinced that in this matter the right reaction is not the
prayer of request, but that of thanksgiving? Do you put this into
practice?
3. How do we know that Christ died?
4. How can our crucifixion with Him be made effective?
5. Why is it wrong to argue that if we had more power we would live a
victorious life?
6. What do the various ways of entering into the victorious life have in
common?
7. Describe the 'secret' which revolutionized Hudson Taylor's life.
8. 'Much of our praying for ourselves is just because we are blind to
what God has done.’ If this is so, to what should most of our praying be
directed?
9. This chapter stresses 'divine revelation’. How do you reconcile this
with the importance of Scriptural doctrine?
10. In what way do you think that Nee's illustration concerning drink
factories may fail to present the whole picture of the Christian's
experience?
Chapter 4
The Path of Progress: Reckoning
We now come to a matter on which there has been some confusion of
thought among the Lord's children. It concerns what follows this knowledge.
Note again first of all the wording of Romans 6:6: "Knowing this, that our old
man was crucified with him." The tense of the verb is most precious, for it
puts the event right back there in the past. It is final, once-for-all. The thing
has been done and cannot be undone. Our old man has been crucified once
and for ever, and he can never be un-crucified. This is what we need to
know.
Then, when we know this, what follows? Look again at our passage.
The next command is in verse 11: "Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be
dead unto sin." This, clearly, is the natural sequel to verse 6. Read them
together: "Knowing that our old man was crucified, ... reckon ye yourselves to
be dead." That is the order. When we know that our old man has been
crucified with Christ, then the next step is to reckon it so.
Unfortunately, in presenting the truth of our union with Christ the
emphasis has too often been placed upon this second matter of reckoning
ourselves to be dead, as though that were the starting point, whereas it
should rather be upon knowing ourselves to be dead. God's Word makes it
clear that "knowing" is to precede "reckoning." "Know this ... reckon." The
sequence is most important. Our reckoning must be based on knowledge of
divinely revealed fact, for otherwise faith has no foundation on which to rest.
When we know, then we reckon spontaneously.
So in teaching this matter we should not over-emphasize reckoning.
People are always trying to reckon without knowing. They have not first had a
Spirit-given revelation of the fact; yet they try to reckon, and soon they get into
all sorts of difficulties. When temptation comes they begin to reckon furiously.
"I am dead; I am dead; I am dead!" but in the very act of reckoning they lose
their temper. Then they say, "It doesn't work. Romans 6:11 is no good." And
we have to admit that verse 11 is no good without verse 6. So it comes to
this, that unless we know for a fact that we are dead with Christ, the more we
reckon, the more intense will the struggle become, and the issue will be sure
defeat.
For years after my conversion I had been taught to reckon. I reckoned
from 1920 until 1927. The more I reckoned that I was dead to sin, the more
alive I clearly was. I simply could not believe myself dead, and I could not
produce the death. Whenever I sought help from others I was told to read
Romans 6:11, and the more I read Romans 6:11 and tried to reckon, the
further away death was: I could not get at it. I fully appreciated the teaching
that I must reckon, but I could not make out why nothing resulted from it. I
have to confess that for months I was troubled. I said to the Lord, "If this is
not clear, if I cannot be brought to see this which is so very fundamental, I will
cease to do anything. I will not preach any more; I will not go out to serve
thee any more; I want first of all to get thoroughly clear here." For months I
was seeking, and at times I fasted, but nothing came through.
I remember one morning—that morning was a real morning and one I
can never forget—I was upstairs sitting at my desk reading the Word and
praying, and I said, "Lord, open my eyes!" And then in a flash I saw it. I saw
my oneness with Christ. I saw that I was in him, and that when he died I died.
I saw that the question of my death was a matter of the past and not of the
future, and that I was just as truly dead as he was because I was in him when
he died. The whole thing had dawned upon me. I was carried away with
such joy at this great discovery that I jumped from my chair and cried, "Praise
the Lord, I am dead!" I ran downstairs and met one of the brothers helping in
the kitchen and laid hold of him. "Brother," I said, "do you know that I have
died?" I must admit he looked puzzled. "What do you mean?" he said, so I
went on: "Do you not know that Christ has died? Do you not know that I died
with him? Do you not know that my death is no less truly a fact than his?" Oh
it was so real to me! I longed to go through the streets of Shanghai shouting
the news of my discovery. From that day to this I have never for one moment
doubted the finality of that word: "I have been crucified with Christ."
I do not mean to say that we need not work that out. Yes, there is an
outworking of the death which we are going to see presently, but this, first of
all, its basis. I have been crucified: in Christ it has been done.
What, then, is the secret of reckoning? To put it in one word, it is
revelation. We need revelation from God himself (Matt. 16:17; Eph. 1:17, 18).
We need to have our eyes opened to the fact of our union with Christ, and
that is something more than knowing it as a doctrine. Such revelation is no
vague indefinite thing. Most of us can remember the day when we saw
clearly that Christ died for us, and we ought to be equally clear as to the time
when we saw that we died with Christ. It should be nothing hazy, but very
definite, for it is with this as basis that we shall go on. It is not that I reckon
myself to be dead, and therefore I will be dead. It is that, because I am
dead—because I see now what God has done with me in Christ—therefore I
reckon myself to be dead. That is the right kind of reckoning. It is not
reckoning toward death but from death.
THE SECOND STEP: "EVEN SO RECKON ..."
What does reckoning mean? "Reckoning" in Greek means doing
accounts, bookkeeping. Accounting is the only thing in the world we human
beings can do correctly. An artist paints a landscape. Can he do it with
perfect accuracy? Can the historian vouch for the absolute accuracy of any
record, or the map-maker for the perfect correctness of any map? They can
make, at best, fair approximations. Even in everyday speech, when we try to
tell some incident with the best intention to be honest and truthful, we cannot
speak with complete accuracy. It is mostly a case of exaggeration or understatement, of one word too much or too little. What then can a man do that is
utterly reliable? Arithmetic! There is no scope for error there. One chair plus
one chair equals two chairs. That is true in London and it is true in Cape
Town. If you travel west to New York or east to Singapore it is still the same.
All the world over and for all time, one plus one equals two. One plus one is
two in heaven and earth and hell.
Why does God say we are to reckon ourselves dead? Because we are
dead. Let us keep to the analogy of accounting. Suppose I have fifteen
shillings in my pocket, what do I enter in my account-book? Can I enter
fourteen shillings and sixpence or fifteen shillings and sixpence? No, I must
enter in my account-book that which is in fact in my pocket. Accounting is the
reckoning of facts, not fancies. Even so, it is because I am really dead that
God tells me to account it so. God could not ask me to put down in my
account-book what was not true. He could not ask me to reckon that I am
dead if I am still alive. For such mental gymnastics the word "reckoning"
would be inappropriate; we might rather speak of "mis-reckoning!"
Reckoning is not a form of make-believe. It does not mean that, having
found that I have only twelve shillings in my pocket, I hope that by entering
fifteen shillings incorrectly in my account-book such "reckoning" will somehow
remedy the deficiency. It won't. If I have only twelve shillings, yet try to
reckon to myself: "I have fifteen shillings; I have fifteen shillings; I have fifteen
shillings," do you think that the mental effort involved will in any way affect the
sum that is in my pocket? Not a bit of it! Reckoning will not make twelve
shillings into fifteen shillings, nor will it make what is untrue true. But if, on the
other hand, it is a fact that I have fifteen shillings in my pocket, then with great
ease and assurance I can enter fifteen shillings in my account-book. God
tells us to reckon ourselves dead, not that by the process of reckoning we
may become dead, but because we are dead. He never told us to reckon
what was not a fact.
Having said, then, that revelation leads spontaneously to reckoning, we
must not lose sight of the fact that we are presented with a command:
"Reckon ye ..." There is a definite attitude to be taken. God asks us to do the
account; to put down "I have died" and then to abide by it. Why? Because it
is a fact. When the Lord Jesus was on the Cross, I was there in him.
Therefore I reckon it to be true. I reckon and declare that I have died in him.
Paul said, "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto
God." How is this possible? "In Christ Jesus." Never forget that it is always
and only true in Christ. If you look at yourself you will think death is not there,
but it is a question of faith not in yourself but in him. You look to the Lord, and
know what he has done. "Lord, I believe in thee. I reckon upon the fact in
thee." Stand there all the day.
THE RECKONING OF FAITH
The first four-and-a-half chapters of Romans speak of faith and faith and
faith. We are justified by faith in him (Rom. 3:28; 5:1). Righteousness, the
forgiveness of our sins, and peace with God are all ours by faith, and without
faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ none can possess them. But in the
second section of Romans we do not find the same repeated mention of faith,
and it might at first appear that the emphasis is therefore different. It is not
really so, however, for where the words "faith" and "believe" drop out the word
"reckon" takes their place. Reckoning and faith are here practically the same
thing.
What is faith? Faith is my acceptance of God's fact. It always has its
foundations in the past. What relates to the future is hope rather than faith,
although faith often has its object or goal in the future, as in Hebrews 11.
Perhaps for this reason the word chosen here is "reckon." It is a word that
relates only to the past—to what we look back to as settled, and not forward
to as yet to be. This is the kind of faith described in Mark 11:24: "All things
whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye
shall have them." The statement there is that, if you believe that you already
have received your requests (that is, of course, in Christ), then "you shall
have them." To believe that you may get something, or that you can get it, or
even that you will get it, is not faith in the sense meant here. This is faith—to
believe that you have already got it. Only that which relates to the past is faith
in this sense. Those who say "God can" or "God may" or "God must" or "God
will" do not necessarily believe at all. Faith always says, "God has done it."
When, therefore, do I have faith in regard to my crucifixion? Not when I
say God can, or will, or must crucify me, but when with joy I say, "Praise God,
in Christ I am crucified!"
In Romans 3 we see the Lord Jesus bearing our sins and dying as our
Substitute that we might be forgiven. In Romans 6 we see ourselves included
in the death whereby he secured our deliverance. When the first fact was
revealed to us we believed on him for our justification. God tells us to reckon
upon the second fact for our deliverance. So that, for practical purposes,
"reckoning" in the second section of Romans takes the place of "faith" in the
first section. The emphasis is not different. The normal Christian life is lived
progressively, as it is entered initially, by faith in divine fact: in Christ and his
Cross.
TEMPTATION AND FAILURE, THE CHALLENGE TO FAITH
For us, then, the two greatest facts in history are these: that all our sins
are dealt with by the Blood, and that we ourselves are dealt with by the Cross.
But what now of the matter of temptation? What is to be our attitude when,
after we have seen and believed these facts, we discover the old desires
rising up again? Worse still, what if we fall once more into known sin? What
if we lose our temper, or worse? Is the whole position set forth above proved
thereby to be false?
Now remember, one of the Devil's main objects is always to make us
doubt the divine facts. (Compare Gen. 3:4.) After we have seen, by revelation
of the Spirit of God, that we are indeed dead with Christ, and have reckoned it
so, he will come and say: "There is something moving inside. What about it?
Can you call this death?" When that happens, what will be our answer? The
crucial test is just here. Are we going to believe the tangible facts of the
natural realm which are clearly before our eyes, or the intangible facts of the
spiritual realm which are neither seen nor scientifically proved.
Now we must be careful. It is important for us to recall again what are
facts stated in God's Word for faith to lay hold of and what are not. How does
God state that deliverance is effected? Well, in the first place, we are not told
that sin as a principle in us is rooted out or removed. To reckon on that will
be to miscalculate altogether and find ourselves in the false position of the
man we considered earlier, who tried to put down the twelve shillings in his
pocket as fifteen shillings in his account-book. No, sin is not eradicated. It is
very much there, and, given the opportunity, will overpower us and cause us
to commit sins again, whether consciously or unconsciously. That is why we
shall always need to know the operation of the precious Blood.
But whereas we know that, in dealing with sins committed, God's method
is direct, to blot them out of remembrance by means of the Blood, when we
come to the principle of sin and the matter of deliverance from its power, we
find instead that God deals with this indirectly. He does not remove the sin
but the sinner. Our old man was crucified with him, and because of this the
body, which before had been a vehicle of sin, is unemployed (Rom. 6:6). (The
verb katargeo translated "destroyed" in Romans 6:6 (A.V.) does not mean
"annihilated," but "put out of operation," "made ineffective." It is from the
Greek root argos, "inactive," "not working," "unprofitable," which is the word
translated "idle" in Matthew 20:3, 6 of the unemployed laborers in the market
place. — Ed.) Sin, the old master, is;. still about, but the slave who served
him has been put to death and so is out of reach and his members are
unemployed. The gambler's hand is unemployed, the swearer's tongue is
unemployed, and these members are now available to be used instead "as
instruments of righteousness unto God" (Rom. 6:13).
Thus we can say that "deliverance from sin" is a more scriptural idea than
"victory over sin." The expressions "freed from sin" and "dead unto sin" in
Romans 6:7 and 11 imply deliverance from a power that is still very present
and very real—not from something that no longer exists. Sin is still there, but
we are knowing deliverance from its power in increasing measure day by day.
This deliverance is so real that John can boldly write: "Whosoever is
begotten of God doeth no sin ... he cannot sin" (1 John 3:9), which is,
however, a statement that, wrongly understood, may easily mislead us. By it
John is not telling us that sin is now no longer in our history and that we shall
not again commit sin. He is saying that to sin is not the nature of that which is
born of God. The life of Christ has been planted in us by new birth and its
nature is not to commit sin. But there is a great difference between the nature
and the history of a thing, and there is a great difference between the nature
of the life within us and our history. To illustrate this (though the illustration is
an inadequate one) we might say that wood "cannot" sink, for it is not its
nature to do so; but of course in history it will do so if a hand holds it under
water. The history is a fact, just as sins in our history are historic facts; but
the nature is a fact also, and so is the new nature that we have received in
Christ. What is "in Christ" cannot sin; what is in Adam can sin and will do so
whenever Satan is given a chance to exert his power.
So it is a question of our choice of which facts we will count upon and live
by: the tangible facts of daily experience or the mightier fact that we are now
"in Christ." The power of his resurrection is on our side, and the whole might
of God is at work in our salvation (Rom. 1:16), but the matter still rests upon
our making real in history what is true in divine fact.
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not
seen" (Heb. 11:1), and "the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor.
4:18). I think we all know that Hebrews 11:1 is the only definition of faith in
the New Testament, or indeed in the Scriptures. It is important that we should
really understand that definition. You are familiar with the common English
translation of these words, describing faith as "the substance of things hoped
for" (A.V.). However, the word in the Greek has in it the sense of an action
and not just of some thing, a "substance," and I confess I have personally
spent a number of years trying to find a correct word to translate this. But the
New Translation of J. N. Darby is especially good in regard to this word: "Faith
is the substantiating of things hoped for." That is much better. It implies the
making of them real in experience.
How do we "substantiate" something? We are doing so every day. We
cannot live in the world without doing so. Do you know the difference
between substance and "substantiating?"
A substance is an object,
something before me. "Substantiating" means that I have a certain power or
faculty that makes that substance to be real to me. Let us take a simple
illustration. By means of our senses we can take things of the world of nature
and transfer them into our consciousness so that we can appreciate them.
Sight and hearing, for example, are two of my faculties which substantiate to
me the world of light and sound. We have colors: red, yellow, green, blue,
violet; and these colors are real things. But if I shut my eyes, then to me the
color is no longer real; it is simply nothing—to me. With my faculty of sight,
however, I possess the power to "substantiate," and by that power, yellow
becomes yellow to me. It is not only that the color is there, but I have the
power to "substantiate" it. I have the power to make that color true to me and
to give it reality in my consciousness. That is the meaning of "substantiating."
If I am blind I cannot distinguish color, or if I lack the faculty of hearing I
cannot enjoy music. Yet music and color are in fact real things, and their
reality is unaffected by whether or not I am able to appreciate them. Now we
are considering here the things which, though they are not seen, are eternal
and therefore real. Of course we cannot substantiate divine things with any of
our natural senses; but there is one faculty which can substantiate the "things
hoped for," the things of Christ, and that is faith. Faith makes the real things
to become real in my experience. Faith "substantiates" to me the things of
Christ. Hundreds of thousands of people are reading Romans 6:6: "Our old
man was crucified with him." To faith it is true; to doubt, or to mere mental
assent apart from spiritual illumination, it is not true.
Let us remember again that we are dealing here not with promises but
with facts. The promises of God are revealed to us by his Spirit that we may
lay hold of them; but facts are facts, and they remain facts whether we believe
them or not. If we do not believe the facts of the Cross they still remain as
real as ever, but they are valueless to us. It does not need faith to make
these things real in themselves, but faith can "substantiate" them and make
them real in our experience.
Whatever contradicts the truth of God's Word we are to regard as the
Devil's lie, not because it may not be in itself a very real fact to our senses,
but because God has stated a greater fact before which the other must
eventually yield. I once had an experience which (though not applicable in
detail to the present matter) illustrates this principle. Some years ago I was ill.
For six nights I had high fever and could find no sleep. Then at length God
gave me from the Scripture a personal word of healing, and because of this I
expected all symptoms of sickness to vanish at once. Instead of that, not a
wink of sleep could I get, and I was not only sleepless but more restless than
ever. My temperature rose higher, my pulse beat faster and my head ached
more severely than before. The enemy asked, "Where is God's promise?
Where is your faith? What about all your prayers?" So I was tempted to
thrash the whole matter out in prayer again, but was rebuked, and this
Scripture came to mind: "Thy word is truth" (John 17:17). If God's Word is
truth, I thought, then what are these symptoms? They must all be lies? So I
declared to the enemy, "This sleeplessness is a lie, this headache is a lie, this
fever is a lie, this high pulse is a lie. In view of what God has said to me, all
these symptoms of sickness are just your lies, and God's Word to me is truth."
In five minutes I was asleep, and I awoke the following morning perfectly well.
Now of course in a particular personal matter such as the above it might
be quite possible for me to deceive myself as to what God had said, but of the
fact of the Cross there can never be any such question. We must believe
God, no matter how convincing Satan's arguments appear.
A skillful liar lies not only in word but in gesture and deed; he can as
easily pass a bad coin as tell an untruth. The Devil is a skillful liar, and we
cannot expect him to stop at words in his lying. He will resort to lying signs
and feelings and experiences in his attempts to shake us from our faith in
God's Word. Let me make it clear that I do not deny the reality of the "flesh."
Indeed we shall have a good deal more to say about this further on in our
study. But I am speaking here of our being moved from a revealed position in
Christ. As soon as we have accepted our death with Christ as a fact, Satan
will do his best to demonstrate convincingly by the evidence of our day-to-day
experience that we are not dead at all but very much alive. So we must
choose. Will we believe Satan's lie or God's truth? Are we going to be
governed by appearances or by what God says?
I am Mr. Nee. I know that I am Mr. Nee. It is a fact upon which I can
confidently count. It is of course possible that I might lose my memory and
forget that I am Mr. Nee, or I might dream that I am some other person. But
whether I feel like it or not, when I am sleeping I am Mr. Nee and when I am
awake I am Mr. Nee; when I remember it I am Mr. Nee and when I forget it I
am still Mr. Nee.
Now of course, were I to pretend to be someone else, things would be
much more difficult. If I were to try to pose as Miss K. I should have to keep
saying to myself all the time, "You are Miss K.; now be sure to remember that
you are Miss K.," and despite much reckoning the likelihood would be that
when I was off my guard and someone called, "Mr. Nee!" I should be caught
out and should answer to my own name. Fact would triumph over fiction, and
all my reckoning would break down at that crucial moment. But I am Mr. Nee
and therefore I have no difficulty whatever in reckoning myself to be Mr. Nee.
It is a fact which nothing I experience or fail to experience can alter.
So also, whether I feel it or not, I am dead with Christ. How can I be
sure? Because Christ has died; and since "one died for all, therefore all died"
(2 Cor. 5:14). Whether my experience proves it or seems to disprove it, the
fact remains unchanged. While I stand upon that fact, Satan cannot prevail
against me. Remember that his attack is always upon our assurance. If he
can get us to doubt God's Word, then his object is secured and he has us in
his power; but if we rest unshaken in the assurance of God's stated fact,
assured that he cannot do injustice to his work or his Word, then it does not
matter what tactics Satan adopts, we can well afford to laugh at him. If
anyone should try to persuade me that I am not Mr. Nee, I could well afford to
do the same.
"We walk by faith, not by appearance" (2 Cor. 5:7, mg.). You probably
know the illustration of Fact, Faith and Experience walking along the top of a
wall. Fact walked steadily on, turning neither to right nor left and never
looking behind. Faith followed, and all went well so long as he kept his eyes
focused upon Fact; but as soon as he became concerned about Experience
and turned to see how he was getting on, he lost his balance and tumbled off
the wall, and poor old Experience fell down after him.
All temptation is primarily to look within; to take our eyes off the Lord and
to take account of appearances. Faith is always meeting a mountain, a
mountain of evidence that seems to contradict God's Word, a mountain of
apparent contradiction in the realm of tangible fact—of failures in deed, as
well as in the realm of feeling and suggestion—and either faith or the
mountain has to go. They cannot both stand. But the trouble is that many a
time the mountain stays and faith goes. That must not be. If we resort to our
senses to discover the truth, we shall find Satan's lies are often enough true
to our experience; but if we refuse to accept as binding anything that
contradicts God's Word and maintain an attitude of faith in him alone, we shall
find instead that Satan's lies begin to dissolve and that our experience is
coming progressively to tally with that Word.
It is our occupation with Christ that has this result, for it means that he
becomes progressively real to us on concrete issues. In a given situation we
see him as real righteousness, real holiness, real resurrection life—for us.
What we see in him objectively now operates in us subjectively—but really—
to manifest him in us in that situation. That is the mark of maturity. That is
what Paul means by his words to the Galatians: "I am again in travail until
Christ be formed in you" (4:19). Faith is "substantiating" God's facts; and faith
is always the "substantiating" of eternal fact—of something eternally true.
ABIDING IN HIM
Now although we have already spent long on this matter, there is a
further thing that may help to make it clearer to us. The Scriptures declare
that we are "dead indeed," but nowhere do they say that we are dead in
ourselves. We shall look in vain to find death within; that is just the place
where it is not to be found. We are dead not in ourselves but in Christ. We
were crucified with him because we were in him.
We are familiar with the words of the Lord Jesus, "Abide in me, and I in
you" (John 15:4). Let us consider them for a moment. First they remind us
once again that we have never to struggle to get into Christ. We are not told
to get there, for we are there; but we are told to stay where we have been
placed. It was God's own act that put us in Christ, and we are to abide in him.
But further, this verse lays down for us a divine principle, which is that
God has done the work in Christ and not in us as individuals. The all-inclusive
death and the all-inclusive resurrection of God's Son were accomplished fully
and finally apart from us in the first place. It is the history of Christ which is to
become the experience of the Christian, and we have no spiritual experience
apart from him. The Scriptures tell us that we were crucified "with him," that
we were quickened, raised, and set by God in the heavenlies "in him," and
that we are complete "in him" (Rom. 6:6; Eph. 2:5, 6; Col. 2:10). It is not just
something that is still to be effected in us (though it is that, of course). It is
something that has already been effected, in association with him.
In the Scriptures we find that no Christian experience exists as such.
What God has done in his gracious purpose is to include us in Christ. In
dealing with Christ God has dealt with the Christian; in dealing with the Head
he has dealt with all the members. It is altogether wrong for us to think that
we can experience anything of the spiritual life in ourselves merely, and apart
from him. God does not intend that we should acquire something exclusively
personal in our experience, and he is not willing to effect anything like that for
you and me. All the spiritual experience of the Christian is already true in
Christ. It has already been experienced by Christ. What we call "our"
experience is only our entering into his history and his experience.
It would be odd if one branch of a vine tried to bear grapes with a reddish
skin, and another branch tried to bear grapes with a green skin, and yet
another branch grapes with a dark purple skin, each branch trying to produce
something of its own without reference to the vine. It is impossible,
unthinkable. The character of the branches is determined by the vine. Yet
certain Christians are seeking experiences as experiences. They think of
crucifixion as something, of resurrection as something, of ascension as
something, and they never stop to think that the whole is related to a Person.
No, only as the Lord opens our eyes to see the Person do we have any true
experience. Every true spiritual experience means that we have discovered a
certain fact in Christ, and have entered into that; anything that is not from him
in this way is an experience that is going to evaporate very soon. "I have
discovered that in Christ; then, Praise the Lord, it is mine! I possess it, Lord,
because it is in thee." Oh it is a great thing to know the facts of Christ as the
foundation for our experience!
So God's basic principle in leading us on experimentally is not to give us
something. It is not to bring us through something, and as a result to put
something into us which we can call "our experience." It is not that God
effects something within us so that we can say, "I died with Christ last March"
or "I was raised from the dead on January 1st, 1937," or even, "Last
Wednesday I asked for a definite experience and I have got it." No, that is not
the way. I do not seek experiences in themselves as in this present year of
grace. Where spiritual history is concerned, time must not be allowed to
dominate my thinking.
Then, some will say, what about the crises so many of us have passed
through? True, some of us have passed through real crises in our lives. For
instance George Muller could say, bowing himself down to the ground, "There
was a day when George Muller died." How about that? Well, I am not
questioning the reality of the spiritual experiences we go through, nor the
importance of crises to which God brings us in our walk with him; indeed, I
have already stressed the need for us to be quite as definite ourselves about
such crises in our own lives. But the point is that God does not give
individuals individual experiences. All that they have is only an entering into
what God has already done. It is the "realizing" in time of eternal things. The
history of Christ becomes our experience and our spiritual history; we do not
have a separate history from his. The entire work with respect to us is not
done in us here but in Christ. He does no separate work in individuals apart
from what he has done there. Even eternal life is not given to us as
individuals: the life is in the Son, and "he that hath the Son hath the life." God
has done all in his Son, and he has included us in him; we are incorporated
into Christ.
Now the point of all this is that there is a very real practical value in the
stand of faith that says, "God has put me in Christ, and therefore all that is
true of him is true of me. I will abide in him." Satan is always trying to get us
out, to keep us out, to convince us that we are out, and by temptations,
failures, suffering, trial, to make us feel acutely that we are outside of Christ.
Our first thought is that, if we were in Christ, we should not be in this state,
and therefore, judging by the feelings we now have, we must be out of him;
and so we begin to pray, "Lord, put me into Christ." No! God's injunction is to
"abide" in Christ, and that is the way of deliverance. But how is it so?
Because it opens the way for God to take a hand in our lives and to work the
thing out in us. It makes room for the operation of his superior power—the
power of resurrection (Rom. 6:4, 9, 10)—so that the facts of Christ do
progressively become the facts of our daily experience, and where before "sin
reigned" (Rom. 5:21) we make now the joyful discovery that we are truly "no
longer ... in bondage to sin" (Rom. 6:6).
As we stand steadfastly on the ground of what Christ is, we find all that is
true of him becoming experimentally true in us. If instead we come on to the
ground of what we are in ourselves, we will find all that is true of the old
nature remaining true of us. If we get there in faith we have everything; if we
return back here we find nothing. So often we go to the wrong place to find
the death of self. It is in Christ. We have only to look within to find we are
very much alive to sin; but when we look over there to the Lord, God sees to it
that death works here but that "newness of life" is ours also. We are "alive
unto God" (Rom. 6:4, 11).
"Abide in me, and I in you." This is a double sentence: a command
coupled with a promise. That is to say, there is an objective and a subjective
side to God's working, and the subjective side depends upon the objective;
the "I in you" is the outcome of our abiding in him. We need to guard against
being over-anxious about the subjective side of things, and so becoming
turned in upon ourselves. We need to dwell upon the objective—"abide in
me"—and to let God take care of the subjective. And this he has undertaken
to do.
I have illustrated this from the electric light. You are in a room and it is
growing dark. You would like to have the light on in order to read. There is a
reading-lamp on the table beside you. What do you do? Do you watch it
intently to see if the light will come on? Do you take a cloth and polish the
bulb? No, you get up and cross over to the other side of the room where the
switch is on the wall, and you turn the current on. You turn your attention to
the source of power and when you have taken the necessary action there the
light comes on here.
So in our walk with the Lord our attention must be fixed on Christ. "Abide
in me, and I in you" is the divine order. Faith in the objective facts makes
those facts true subjectively. As the apostle Paul puts it, "We all ... beholding
... the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image" (2 Cor. 3:18
mg.). The same principle holds good in the matter of fruitfulness of life: "He
that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit" (John 15:5).
We do not try to produce fruit or concentrate upon the fruit produced. Our
business is to look away to him. As we do so he undertakes to fulfill his Word
in us.
How do we abide? "Of God are ye in Christ Jesus." It was the work of
God to put you there and he has done it. Now stay there! Do not be moved
back on to your own ground. Never look at yourself as though you were not
in Christ. Look at Christ, and see yourself in him. Abide in him. Rest in the
fact that God has put you in his Son, and live in the expectation that he will
complete his work in you. It is for him to make good the glorious promise that
"sin shall not have dominion over you" (Rom. 6:14).
Chapter Four Comments and Questions
The Path of Progress: Reckoning
As Watchman Nee points out, reckoning or accounting is the one thing
which men can do with precision; yet this chapter will probably present us with
intellectual problems, and may even leave us feeling rather perplexed
mentally.
Now that we reach this call to 'reckon‟, we can see the importance of
Chapters Two and Three, for knowing must precede reckoning. Confusion
can result from our attempts to obtain deliverance by struggling to make
ourselves believe what we know to be unsubstantiated by experience. Nee's
remarks here are very much to the point.
The chapter gives us no encouragement to profess or expect
sinlessness; it simply reiterates that the way of deliverance is by remembering
and relying on the fact that God has included us in Christ's death and
resurrection.
Nee insists that the real secret is vital association with the Person of
Christ. We must refuse to listen to Satan‟s misrepresentations. We must
learn to reckon on Christ.
Bible reading: Romans 6:6-14
Chapter Sub-headings
The Second Step: 'Even So Reckon.. „
The Reckoning of Faith
Temptation and Failure, the Challenge to Faith
Abiding in Him
Questions
1. What is the implication of the tense used in phrase, ‘was crucified', in
Romans 6.6?
2. What discovery brought an end to Watchman Nee's trouble?
3. With most of us it was a definite crisis when we first realized that
Christ died for us. Should there be a second crisis when we first
appreciate that we died in Him?
4. How does Nee define faith?
5. Are there Scriptural grounds for expecting sin as a principle to be
rooted out of our lives?
6. Do the words: ‘His seed abideth in him’ (1 John 3:9) indicate that in
this life the believer has two natures? If so, what will be necessary for
the full and final deliverance from the old one?
7. How can we make real in history what is true in divine fact?
8. Can you give an illustration of the kind of fall described in the story of
the three men walking on a wall?
9. God puts us 'in Christ', but what do we have to do from our side?
10. What is the discovery which gives meaning to every true spiritual
experience?
Chapter 5
The Divide of the Cross
The kingdom of this world is not the kingdom of God. God had his heart
set upon a world-system, a universe of his creating, which should be headed
up in Christ his Son (Col. 1:16, 17). But Satan, working through man's flesh,
has set up instead a rival system known in Scripture as "this world"—a system
in which we are involved and which he himself dominates. He has in fact
become "the prince of this world" (John 12:31).
TWO CREATIONS
Thus, in Satan's hand, the first creation has become the old creation, and
God's primary concern is now no longer with that but with a second and new
creation. He is bringing in a new creation, a new kingdom and a new world,
and nothing of the old creation, the old kingdom or the old world can be
transferred to the new. It is a question now of these two rival realms, and of
which realm we belong to.
The apostle Paul, of course, leaves us in no doubt as to which of these
two realms is now in fact ours. He tells us that God, in redemption, "delivered
us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the
Son of his love" (Col. 1:12, 13). Our citizenship henceforth is there.
But in order to bring us into his new kingdom, God must do something
new in us. He must make of us new creatures. Unless we are created anew
we can never fit into the new realm. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh";
and, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth
corruption inherit incorruption" (John 3:6; 1 Cor. 15:50). However educated,
however cultured, however improved it be, flesh is still flesh. Our fitness for
the new kingdom is determined by the creation to which we belong. Do we
belong to the old creation or the new? Are we born of the flesh or of the
Spirit? Our ultimate suitability for the new realm hinges on the question of
origin. The question is not "good or bad?" but "flesh or Spirit?." "That which
is born of the flesh is flesh," and it will never be anything else. That which is
of the old creation can never pass over into the new.
Once we really understand what God is seeking, namely, something
altogether new for himself, then we shall see clearly that we can never bring
any contribution from the old realm into that new thing. God wanted to have
us for himself, but he could not bring us as we were into that which he had
purposed; so he first did away with us by the Cross of Christ, and then by
resurrection provided a new life for us. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new
creature [mg. "there is a new creation"]: the old things are passed away;
behold, they are become new" (2 Cor. 5:17). Being now new creatures with a
new nature and a new set of faculties, we can enter the new kingdom and the
new world.
The Cross was the means God used to bring to an end "the old things"
by setting aside altogether our "old man," and the resurrection was the means
he employed to impart to us all that was necessary for our life in that new
world. "We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that
like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we
also might walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4).
The greatest negative in the universe is the Cross, for with it God wiped
out everything that was not of himself: the greatest positive in the universe is
the resurrection, for through it God brought into being all he will have in the
new sphere. So the resurrection stands at the threshold of the new creation.
It is a blessed thing to see that the Cross ends all that belongs to the first
regime, and that the resurrection introduces all that pertains to the second.
Everything that had its beginning before resurrection must be wiped out.
Resurrection is God's new starting-point.
We have now two worlds before us, the old and the new. In the old,
Satan has absolute dominion. You may be a good man in the old creation,
but as long as you belong to the old you are under sentence of death,
because nothing of the old can be carried over to the new. The Cross is
God's declaration that all that is of the old creation must die. Nothing of the
first Adam can pass beyond the Cross; it all ends there. The sooner we see
that, the better, for it is by the Cross that God has made a way of escape for
us from that old creation. God gathered up in the Person of his Son all that
was of Adam and crucified him; so in him all that was of Adam was done
away. Then God made, as it were, a proclamation throughout the universe
saying: "Through the Cross I have set aside all that is not of me; you who
belong to the old creation are all included in that; you too have been crucified
with Christ!" None of us can escape the verdict.
This brings us to the subject of baptism. "Are ye ignorant that all we who
were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were
buried therefore with him through baptism into death" (Rom. 6:3, 4). We must
now ask ourselves what is the significance of these words.
Baptism in Scripture is associated with salvation. "He that believeth and
is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16). We cannot speak scripturally of
"baptismal regeneration" but we may speak of "baptismal salvation." What is
salvation? It relates not to our sins nor to the power of sin, but to the cosmos
or world-system. We are involved in Satan's world-system. To be saved is to
make our exit from his world-system into God's.
In the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, says Paul, "the world hath been
crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Gal. 6:14). This is the figure
developed by Peter when he writes of the eight souls who were "saved
through water" (1 Peter 3:20). Entering into the ark, Noah and those with him
stepped by faith out of that old corrupt world into a new one. It was not so
much that they were personally not drowned but that they were out of that
corrupt system. That is salvation.
Then Peter goes on: "Which also after a true likeness [mg. "in the
antitype"] doth now save you, even baptism" (verse 21). In other words, by
that aspect of the Cross which is figured in baptism, you are delivered from
this present evil world, and, by your baptism in water, you confirm this. It is
baptism "into his death," ending one creation; but it is also baptism "into Christ
Jesus," having in view a new one (Rom. 6:3). You go down into the water
and your world, in figure, goes down with you. You come up in Christ, but
your world is drowned.
"Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved," said Paul at
Philippi, and "spake the word of the Lord" to the jailer and his household. And
he "was baptized, he and all his, immediately" (Acts 16:31-34). In doing so,
he and those with him testified before God, his people and the spiritual
powers that they were indeed saved from a world under judgment. As a
result, we read, they rejoiced greatly, "having believed in God."
Thus it is clear that baptism is no mere question of a cup of water, nor
even of a baptistry of water. It is something far greater, relating as it does to
both the death and the resurrection of our Lord, and having in view two
worlds. Anyone who has seen men turn to Christ in a pagan country knows
what tremendous issues are raised by baptism.
BURIAL MEANS AN END
Peter goes on now to describe baptism in the passage just quoted as
"the answer of a good conscience toward God" (1 Peter 3:21 A.V.). Now we
cannot answer without being spoken to. If God had said nothing, we should
have no need to answer. But he has spoken; he has spoken to us by the
Cross. By it he has told of his judgment of us, of the world, of the old creation
and of the old kingdom. The Cross is not only Christ's personally—an
"individual" Cross. It is an all-inclusive Cross, a "corporate" Cross, a Cross
that includes you and me. God has put us all into his Son, and crucified us in
him. In the last Adam he has wiped out all that was of the first Adam.
What then is my answer to God's verdict on the old creation? I answer
by asking for baptism. Why? In Romans 6:4 Paul explains that baptism
means burial: "We were buried therefore with him through baptism." Baptism
is of course connected with both death and resurrection, though in itself it is
neither death nor resurrection: it is burial. But who qualifies for burial? Only
the dead! So if I ask for baptism I proclaim myself dead and fit only for the
grave.
Alas, some have been taught to look on burial as a means to death; they
try to die by getting themselves buried! Let me say emphatically that, unless
our eyes have been opened by God to see that we have died in Christ and
been buried with him, we have no right to be baptized. The reason we step
down into the water is that we have recognized that in God's sight we have
already died. It is to that that we testify. God's question is clear and simple.
"Christ has died, and I have included you there. Now, what are you going to
say to that?" What is my answer? "Lord, I believe you have done the
crucifying. I say Yes to the death and to the burial to which you have
committed me." He has consigned me to death and the grave; by my request
for baptism I give public assent to that fact.
In China a woman lost her husband, but, becoming deranged by her loss,
she flatly refused to have him buried. Day after day for a fortnight he lay in
the house. "No," she said, "he is not dead; I talk with him every night." She
was unwilling to have him buried because, poor woman, she did not believe
him to be dead. When are we willing to bury our dear ones? Only when we
are absolutely sure that they have passed away. While there is the tiniest
hope that they are alive, we will never bury them. So when will I ask for
baptism? When I see that God's way is perfect and that I deserved to die,
and when I truly believe that God has already crucified me. Once I am fully
persuaded that, before God, I am quite dead, then I apply for baptism. I say,
"Praise God, I am dead! Lord, you have slain me; now get me buried!"
In China we have two emergency Services, a "Red Cross" and a "Blue
Cross." The first deals with those who are wounded in battle but are still alive,
to bring them succor and healing; the second deals with those who are
already dead in famine, flood or war, to give them burial. God's dealings with
us in the Cross of Christ are more drastic than those of the "Red Cross." He
does not set out to patch up the old creation. By him even the still living are
condemned to death and to burial, that they may be raised again to new life.
God has done the work of crucifixion so that now we are counted among the
dead; but we must accept this and submit to the work of the "Blue Cross," by
sealing that death with "burial."
There is an old world and a new world, and between the two there is a
tomb. God has already crucified me, but I must consent to be consigned to
the tomb. My baptism confirms God's sentence, passed upon me in the
Cross of his Son. It affirms that I am cut off from the old world and belong
now to the new. So baptism is no small thing. It means for me a definite
conscious break with the old way of life. This is the meaning of Romans 6:2:
"We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?" Paul asks, in
effect, "If you would continue in the old world, why be baptized? You should
never have been baptized if you meant to live on in the old realm." When
once we see the force of this, we are ready enough to clear the ground for the
new creation by our assent to the burial of the old.
In Romans 6:5, still writing to those who "were baptized" (verse 3), Paul
speaks of our being "united with him by the likeness of his death." For by
baptism we acknowledge in a figure that God has wrought an intimate union
between ourselves and Christ in this matter of death and resurrection. One
day I was seeking to emphasize to a Christian brother the intimacy of this
union. We happened to be drinking tea together, so I took a lump of sugar
and stirred it into my tea. A couple of minutes later I asked, "Can you tell me
where the sugar is now, and where the tea?" "No," he said, "you have put
them together and the one has become lost in the other; they cannot now be
separated." It was a simple illustration, but it helped him to see the intimacy
and the finality of our union with Christ in death. It is God that has put us
there, and God's acts cannot be reversed.
What, in fact, does this union imply? The real meaning behind baptism is
that in the Cross we were "baptized" into the historic death of Christ, so that
his death became ours. Our death and his became then so closely identified
that it is impossible to divide between them. It is to this historic "baptism"—
this God-wrought union with him—that we assent when we go down into the
water. Our public testimony in baptism today is our admission that the death
of Christ two thousand years ago was a mighty all-inclusive death, mighty
enough and all-inclusive enough to carry away in it and bring to an end everything in us that is not of God.
RESURRECTION UNTO NEWNESS OF LIFE
"If we have become united with him by the likeness of his death we shall
be also by the likeness of his resurrection" (Rom. 6:5).
Now with resurrection the figure is different because something new is
introduced. I am "baptized into his death," but I do not enter in quite the same
way into his resurrection, for, Praise the Lord! His resurrection enters into
me, imparting to me a new life. In the death of the Lord the emphasis is
solely upon "I in Christ." With the resurrection, while the same thing is true,
there is now a new emphasis upon "Christ in me." How is it possible for
Christ to communicate his resurrection life to me? How do I receive this new
life? Paul suggests, I think, a very good illustration with these very same
words: "united with him." For the word "united" (A.V. "planted together") may
carry in the Greek the sense of "grafted" (Greek sumphutos "planted or grown
along with," "united with." The word is used in the sense of "grafted" in Classical Greek. In the delightful illustration which follows, the analogy of grafting
should perhaps not be pressed too closely, for it is not quite safe to imply,
without some qualification, that Christ is grafted into the old stock. But what
parable can adequately describe the miracle of the new creation?—Ed.) and
it gives us a very beautiful picture of the life of Christ which is imparted to us
through resurrection.
In Fukien I once visited a man who owned an orchard of longien trees.
(long-ien [Euphoria longama] is a tree native to China. Its fruit resembles an
apricot in size and has a round central stone, a dry, light brown, papery skin
and a delicious white, grape-like pulp. It is eaten either fresh or dried, and is
prized by the Chinese both for its flavor and for its food value.—Ed.) He had
three or four acres of land and about three hundred fruit trees. I inquired if his
trees had been grafted or if they were of the original native stock. "Do you
think," he replied, "that I would waste my land growing ungrafted trees? What
value could I ever expect from the old stock?"
So I asked him to explain the process of grafting, which he gladly did.
"When a tree has grown to a certain height," he said, "I lop off the top and
graft on to it." Pointing to a special tree he asked, "Do you see that tree? I
call it the father tree, because all the grafts for the other trees are taken from
that one. If the other trees were just left to follow the course of nature, their
fruit would be only about the size of a raspberry, and would consist mainly of
thick skin and seeds. This tree, from which the grafts for all the others are
taken, bears a luscious fruit the size of a plum, with very thin skin and a tiny
seed; and of course all the grafted trees bear fruit like it." "How does it
happen?" I asked. "I simply take a little of the nature of the one tree and
transfer it to the other," he explained. "I make a cleavage in the poor tree and
insert a slip from the good one. Then I bind it up and leave it to grow." "But
how can it grow?" I asked. "I don't know," he said, "but it does grow."
Then he showed me a tree bearing miserably poor fruit from the old stock
below the graft, and rich juicy fruit from the new stock above the graft. "I have
left the old shoots with their useless fruit on them to show the difference," he
said. "From it you can understand the value of grafting. You can appreciate,
can you not, why I grow only grafted trees?"
How can one tree bear the fruit of another? How can a poor tree bear
good fruit? Only by grafting. Only by our implanting into it the life of a good
tree. But if a man can graft a branch of one tree into another, cannot God
take of the life of his Son and, so to speak, graft it into us?
A Chinese woman burned her arm badly and was taken to hospital. In
order to prevent serious contracture due to scarring it was found necessary to
graft some new skin over the injured area, but the doctor attempted in vain to
graft a piece of the woman's own skin on to the arm. Owing to her age and illnourishment the skin-graft was too poor and would not "take." Then a foreign
nurse offered a piece of skin and the operation was carried out successfully.
The new skin knit with the old, and the woman left the hospital with her arm
perfectly healed; but there remained a patch of white foreign skin on her
yellow arm to tell the tale of the past. You ask how the skin of another grew
on that woman's arm? I do not know how it grew, but I know that it did grow.
If an earthly surgeon can take a piece of skin from one human body and
graft it on another, (Whatever question medical men may raise as to the
account of this unusual incident, the statement which follows is not open to
challenge.—Ed.) cannot the divine Surgeon implant the life of his Son into
me? I do not know how it is done. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and
thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and
whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). We
cannot tell how God has done his work in us, but it is done. We can do
nothing and need do nothing to bring it about, for by the resurrection God has
already done it.
God has done everything. There is only one fruitful life in the world and
that has been grafted into millions of other lives. We call this the "new birth."
New birth is the reception of a life which I did not possess before. It is not that
my natural life has been changed at all; it is that another life, a life altogether
new, altogether divine, has become my life.
God has cut off the old creation by the Cross of his Son in order to bring
in a new creation in Christ by resurrection. He has shut the door to that old
kingdom of darkness and translated me into the kingdom of his dear Son. My
glorying is in the fact that it has been done—that, through the Cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that old world has "been crucified unto me, and I unto the
world" (Gal. 6:14). My baptism is my public testimony to the fact. By it, as by
my oral witness, my "confession is made unto salvation" (Rom. 10:10).
Chapter Five Comments and Questions
The Divide of the Cross
This chapter is parenthetical. It arose from a message which Watchman
Nee gave on an occasion of Believers' Baptism in London. There is fuel for
controversy here, both concerning baptism and the parable of grafting. Our
wisdom will be to avoid getting caught up with externals, so that we can pay
attention to the spiritual truth under consideration, namely the total newness
of resurrection life. In Noah's case, of course, the new world was not a
sinless one, nor was Noah himself a new man; but the spiritual lessons of the
Flood are made very clear, and the baptismal water is seen to be not a
symbol of cleansing but of judgment and burial.
Notice Nee's helpful interpretation of Romans 6.2: 'You should never
have been baptized if you meant to live on in the old realm'. This accentuates
his point that God does not provide for a mixture of the old with the new, but
demands that we accept the implications of an entirely new life in Christ: the
resurrection life which follows crucifixion and burial.
It might be thought that, provided we are prepared to accept our union
with Christ in His death, then the experience of resurrection life will follow
automatically. This is not the whole truth, though, and perhaps the analogy of
grafting brings into view the need for faith's co-operation with God's provision
in Christ.
Bible Readings: Romans 6:1-4; Galatians 6:14; 1 Peter 3:18-22
Chapter Sub-headings
Two Creations
Burial Means an End
Resurrection unto Newness of Life
Questions
1. Can the old world kingdom be changed into the new kingdom of God?
2. Name some of the 'new faculties' attributed to the new-creation man.
3. What meaning does Nee give to the word 'salvation'?
4. In the universal 'baptism' of Noah's Flood what was drowned?
5. Suggest some differences between John's baptism and being
baptized into Christ Jesus.
6. Have you any experience of the 'tremendous issues' which are
provoked by baptism?
7. Can you find Scriptural justification for Nee's assertion that unless
our eyes have been opened to understand death and burial with Christ
we have no right to be baptized?
8. Do you agree that the analogy of the tea and the lump of sugar is a
valid one to illustrate the Christian's union with Christ?
9. State in your own words the spiritual lesson to be learned from
grafting.
10. What is the significance of new birth?
Chapter 6
The Path of Progress: Presenting Ourselves to
God
Our study has now brought us to the point where we are able to consider
the true nature of consecration. We have before us the second half of
Romans 6 from verse 12 to the end. In Romans 6:12, 13 we read: "Let not
sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof:
neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness;
but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members
as instruments of righteousness unto God." The operative word here is
"present" and this occurs five times in the chapter, in verses 13, 16 and 19.
(Note.—Two Greek verbs paristano and paristemi are translated in these
verses by "present" in the R.V. where the A.V. has "yield." Paristemi occurs
frequently with this meaning, e.g. in Rom. 12:1; 2 Cor. 11:2; Col. 1:22, 28, and
in Luke 2:22 where it is used of the presenting of the infant Jesus to God in
the Temple. Both words have an active sense for which the R.V. translation
"present" is greatly to be preferred. "Yield" contains a passive idea of
"surrender" that has colored much evangelical thought, but which is not in
keeping with the context here in Romans.—Ed.)
Many have taken this word "present" to imply consecration without
looking carefully into its content. Of course that is what it does mean, but not
in the sense in which we so often understand it. It is not the consecration of
our "old man" with his instincts and resources, his natural wisdom, strength
and other gifts, to the Lord for him to use.
This will be at once clear from verse 13. Note there the clause "as alive
from the dead." Paul says, "Present yourselves unto God, as alive from the
dead." This defines for us the point at which consecration begins. For what is
here referred to is not the consecration of anything belonging to the old
creation, but only of that which has passed through death to resurrection.
The "presenting" spoken of is the outcome of my knowing my old man to be
crucified. Knowing, reckoning, presenting to God: that is the divine order.
When I really know I am crucified with him, then spontaneously I reckon
myself dead (verses 6 and 11); and when I know that I am raised with him
from the dead, then likewise I reckon myself "alive unto God in Christ Jesus"
(verses 9 and 11), for both the death and the resurrection side of the Cross
are to be accepted by faith. When this point is reached, giving myself to him
follows. In resurrection he is the source of my life—indeed he is my life; so I
cannot but present everything to him, for all is his, not mine. But without
passing through death I have nothing to consecrate, nor is there anything God
can accept, for he has condemned all that is of the old creation to the Cross.
Death has cut off all that cannot be consecrated to him, and resurrection
alone has made consecration possible. Presenting myself to God means that
henceforth I consider my whole life as belonging to him.
THE THIRD STEP: "PRESENT YOURSELVES..."
Let us observe that this "presenting" relates to the members of my
body—that body which, as we saw earlier, is now unemployed in respect of
sin. "Present yourselves ... and your members," says Paul, and again:
"Present your members" (Rom. 6:13, 19). God requires of me that I now
regard all my members, all my faculties, as belonging wholly to him.
It is a great thing when I discover I am no longer my own but his. If the
ten shillings in my pocket belong to me, then I have full authority over them.
But if they belong to another who has committed them to me in trust, then I
cannot buy what I please with them, and I dare not lose them. Real Christian
life begins with knowing this. How many of us know that, because Christ is
risen, we are therefore alive "unto God" and not unto ourselves? How many
of us dare not use our time or money or talents as we would, because we
realize they are the Lord's, not ours? How many of us have such a strong
sense that we belong to Another that we dare not squander a shilling of our
money, or an hour of our time, or any of our mental or physical powers?
On one occasion a Chinese brother was traveling by train and found
himself in a carriage together with three non-Christians who, in order to
beguile the time, wished to play cards. Lacking a fourth to complete the
game, they invited this brother to join them. "I am sorry to disappoint you," he
said, "but I cannot join your game for I have not brought my hands with me."
"Whatever do you mean?" they asked in blank astonishment. "This pair of
hands does not belong to me," he said, and then there followed the
explanation of the transfer of ownership that had taken place in his life. That
brother regarded the members of his body as belonging entirely to the Lord.
That is true holiness.
Paul says, "Present your members as servants to righteousness unto
sanctification” (A.V.) "holiness to the Lord" (Exod. 28:36). I gave myself over
wholly to Christ: that is holiness.
SEPARATED UNTO THE LORD
What is holiness? Many people think we become holy by the eradication
of something evil within. No, we become holy by being separated unto God.
In Old Testament times, it was when a man was chosen by God to be
altogether his that he was publicly anointed with oil and was then said to be
"sanctified." Thereafter he was regarded as set apart to God. In the same
manner even animals or material things—a lamb, or the gold of the temple—
could be sanctified, not by the eradication of anything evil in them, but by
being thus reserved exclusively to the Lord. "Holiness" in the Hebrew sense
meant something thus set apart, and all true holiness is holiness "to the Lord"
(Exod. 28:36). I gave myself over wholly to Christ: that is holiness.
Presenting myself to God implies a recognition that I am altogether his.
This giving of myself is a definite thing, just as definite as reckoning. There
must be a day in my life when I pass out of my own hands into his, and from
that day forward I belong to him and no longer to myself. That does not mean
that I consecrate myself to be a preacher or a missionary. Alas, many people
are missionaries not because they have truly consecrated themselves to God
but because, in the sense of which we are speaking, they have not
consecrated themselves to him. They have "consecrated" (as they would put
it) something altogether different, namely, their own un-crucified natural
faculties to the doing of his work; but that is not true consecration. Then to
what are we to be consecrated? Not to Christian work, but to the will of God,
to be and to do whatever he requires.
David had many mighty men. Some were generals and others were
gatekeepers, according as the king assigned them their tasks. We must be
willing to be either generals or gatekeepers, allotted to our parts just as God
wills and not as we choose. If you are a Christian, then God has marked out
a pathway for you—a "course" as Paul calls it in 2 Timothy 4:7. Not only
Paul's path but the path of every Christian has been clearly marked out by
God, and it is of supreme importance that each one should know and walk in
the God-appointed course. "Lord, I give myself to thee with this desire alone,
to know and walk in the path thou hast ordained." That is true giving. If at the
close of a life we can say with Paul: "I have finished my course," then we are
blessed indeed. There is nothing more tragic than to come to the end of life
and know we have been on the wrong course. We have only one life to live
down here and we are free to do as we please with it, but if we seek our own
pleasure our life will never glorify God. A devoted Christian once said in my
hearing, "I want nothing for myself; I want everything for God." Do you want
anything apart from God, or does all your desire center in his will? Can you
truly say that the will of God is "good and acceptable and perfect" to you?
(Rom. 12:2).
For it is our wills that are in question here. That strong self-assertive will
of mine must go to the Cross, and I must give myself wholly to the Lord. We
cannot expect a tailor to make us a coat if we do not give him any cloth, nor a
builder to build us a house if we let him have no building material; and in just
the same way we cannot expect the Lord to live out his life in us if we do not
give him our lives in which to live. Without reservations, without controversy,
we must give ourselves to him to do as he pleases with us. "Present
yourselves unto God" (Rom. 6:13).
SERVANT OR SLAVE?
If we give ourselves unreservedly to God, many adjustments may have to
be made: in family, or business, or church relationships, or in the matter of our
personal views. God will not let anything of ourselves remain. His finger will
touch, point by point, everything that is not of him, and will say: "This must
go." Are you willing? It is foolish to resist God, and always wise to submit to
him. We admit that many of us still have controversies with the Lord. He
wants something, while we want something else. Many things we dare not
look into, dare not pray about, dare not even think about, lest we lose our
peace. We can evade the issue in that way, but to do so will bring us out of
the will of God. It is always an easy matter to get out of his will, but it is a
blessed thing just to hand ourselves over to him and let him have his way with
us.
How good it is to have the consciousness that we belong to the Lord and
are not our own. There is nothing more precious in the world. It is that which
brings the awareness of his continual presence, and the reason is obvious. I
must first have the sense of God's possession of me before I can have the
sense of his presence with me. When once his ownership is established,
then I dare do nothing in my own interests, for I am his exclusive property.
"Know ye not, that to whom ye present yourselves as servants unto
obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey?" (Rom. 6:16). The word here
rendered "servant" really signifies a bondservant, a slave. This word is used
several times in the second half of Romans 6. What is the difference between
a servant and a slave? A servant may serve another, but the ownership does
not pass to that other. If he likes his master he can serve him, but if he does
not like him he can give in his notice and seek another master. Not so is it
with the slave. He is not only the servant of another but he is the possession
of another. How did I become the slave of the Lord? On his part he bought
me, and on my part I presented myself to him. By right of redemption I am
God's property, but if I would be his slave I must willingly give myself to him,
for he will never compel me to do so.
The trouble with many Christians today is that they have an insufficient
idea of what God is asking of them. How glibly they say: "Lord, I am willing
for anything." Do you know that God is asking of you your very life? There
are cherished ideals, strong wills, precious relationships, much-loved work,
that will have to go; so do not give yourself to God unless you mean it. God
will take you seriously, even if you did not mean it seriously.
When the Galilean boy brought his bread to the Lord, what did the Lord
do with it? He broke it. God will always break what is offered to him. He
breaks what he takes, but after breaking it he blesses and uses it to meet the
needs of others. After you give yourself to the Lord, he begins to break what
was offered to him. Everything seems to go wrong, and you protest and find
fault with the ways of God. But to stay there is to be no more than just a
broken vessel—no good for the world because you have gone too far for the
world to use you, and no good for God either because you have not gone far
enough for him to use you. You are out of gear with the world, and you have
a controversy with God. This is the tragedy of many a Christian.
My giving of myself to the Lord must be an initial fundamental act. Then,
day by day, I must go on giving to him, not finding fault with his use of me, but
accepting with praise even what the flesh finds hard. That way lies true
enrichment.
I am the Lord's, and now no longer reckon myself to be my own but
acknowledge in everything his ownership and authority. That is the attitude
God delights in, and to maintain it is true consecration. I do not consecrate
myself to be a missionary or a preacher; I consecrate myself to God to do his
will where I am, be it in school, office or kitchen or wherever he may, in his
wisdom, send me. Whatever he ordains for me is sure to be the very best, for
nothing but good can come to those who are wholly his.
May we always be possessed by the consciousness that we are not our
own.
Chapter Six Comments and Questions
The Path of Progress: Presenting Ourselves to God
In dealing with this subject of consecration we note the increased stress
on the matter of choice and action. God has done so much, but this does not
permit of passivity on our part. Once we have recognized what He has done
for us in Christ, we are called upon to make the proper response from our
side. In the fourth chapter we were commanded to „reckon'; now we are told
that we must act. We could not do so before. It was futile to attempt to
consecrate our old man to God, for he was unsuitable and unacceptable. As
Nee reminds us: 'resurrection alone has made consecration possible‟.
The Christian is a servant, but he is not servile; he obeys „from the heart'.
He is living in the good of resurrection life, so his whole being, including every
member and faculty, are to be made available to God, held at His disposal
and subject to His every wish.
This, says Nee, is the most satisfying and secure of lives. It is logical and
right, for God has literally bought us for Himself at great cost, and never
means to pass us over to another owner. Once we recognize this, we embark
on a rewarding life of constantly referring everything back to our rightful
Master, learning to like what He likes and to avoid what He dislikes.
Bible Reading: Romans 6:12-23
Chapter Sub-headings
The Third Step: 'Present Yourselves ...'
Separated Unto the Lord
Servant or Slave?
Questions
1. Find the five references to the verb 'present'
2. Why has the unconverted man nothing which he can consecrate to
God?
3. Is Nee's challenge concerning our use of time, money and talents not
liable to make us introspective and oversensitive?
4. 'Holiness is the condition of being set apart.' Does this mean that it
has no reference to the quality and character of a person?
5. Who is the only One who can decide what service we are to render?
And how can He make His decisions known to us?
6. Explain the difference between an assertive self-will and the
deliberate choice of God's will.
7. In practical terms, how can God put His finger on things in our lives
which are displeasing to Him?
8. Find references to 'servants' in this passage of Scripture.
9. 'God will always break what is offered to Him.' Have you found this to
be the case? Are God's actions in this respect governed by His
awareness of how sincere our consecration may be?
10. What must be the maintained behavior of the believer who has made
an initial committal of consecration?
Chapter 7
The Eternal Purpose
We have spoken of the need of revelation, of faith and of consecration, if
we are to live a normal Christian life. But unless we see the end God has in
view, we shall never clearly understand why these steps are necessary to
lead us to that end. So before we consider further the question of inward
experience, let us first look at the great divine goal before us.
What is God's purpose in creation, and what is his purpose in
redemption? It may be summed up in two phrases, one from each of our two
sections of Romans. It is: "the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23), and: "the glory of
the children of God" (8:21).
In Romans 3:23 we read: "All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of
God." God's purpose for man was glory, but sin thwarted that purpose by
causing man to miss God's glory. When we think of sin we instinctively think
of the judgment it brings; we invariably associate it with condemnation and
hell. Man's thought is always of the punishment that will come to him if he
sins, but God's thought is always of the glory man will miss if he sins. The
result of sin is that we forfeit God's glory: the result of redemption is that we
are qualified again for glory. God's purpose in redemption is glory, glory,
glory.
FIRSTBORN AMONG MANY BRETHREN
This consideration takes us forward into Romans chapter 8, where the
topic is developed in verses 16 to 18 and again in verses 29 and 30, Paul
says: "We are children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and
joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also
glorified with him. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward"
(Rom. 8:16-18); and again: "Whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be
conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among
many brethren; and whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom
he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also
glorified" (Rom. 8:29, 30). What was God's objective? It was that his Son
Jesus Christ might be the firstborn among many brethren, all of whom should
be conformed to his image. How did God realize that objective? "Whom he
justified, them he also glorified." Thus God's purpose in creation and
redemption was to make Christ the firstborn Son among many glorified sons.
That may perhaps at first convey very little to many of us, but let us look into it
more carefully.
In John 1:14 we are told that the Lord Jesus was God's only begotten
Son: "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory,
glory as of the only begotten from the Father)." That he was God's only
begotten Son signifies that God had no other Son but this one. He was with
the Father from all eternity. But, we are told, God was not satisfied that Christ
should remain the only begotten Son; he wanted also to make him his first
begotten. How could an only begotten Son become a first begotten? The
answer is simple: by the Father having more children. If you have but one
son, then he is the only begotten, but if thereafter you have other children,
then the only begotten becomes the first begotten.
The divine purpose in creation and redemption was that God should have
many children. He wanted us, and could not be satisfied without us. Some
time ago I called to see Mr. George Cutting, the writer of the well-known tract
Safety, Certainty and Enjoyment. When I was ushered into the presence of
this old saint of ninety-three years, he took my hand in his and in a quiet,
deliberate way he said: "Brother, do you know, I cannot do without him? And
do you know, he cannot do without me?" Though I was with him for over an
hour, his great age and physical frailty made any sustained conversation
impossible. But what remains in my memory of that interview was his
frequent repetition of these two questions: "Brother, do you know, I cannot do
without him? And do you know, he cannot do without me?"
In reading the story of the prodigal son most people are impressed with
all the troubles the prodigal meets; they are occupied in thinking what a bad
time he is having. But that is not the point of the parable. "My son ... was
lost, and is found "—there is the heart of the story. It is not a question of what
the son suffers, but of what the Father loses. He is the sufferer; he is the
loser. A sheep is lost; whose is the loss? The shepherd's. A coin is lost:
whose is the loss? The woman's. A son is lost: whose is the loss? The
Father's. That is the lesson of Luke chapter 15.
The Lord Jesus was the only begotten Son, and as the only begotten he
has no brothers. But the Father sent the Son in order that the only begotten
might also be the first begotten, and the beloved Son have many brethren.
There you have the whole story of the Incarnation and the Cross; and there
you have, at the last, the purpose of God fulfilled in his "bringing many sons
unto glory" (Heb. 2:10).
In Romans 8:29 we read of "many brethren"; in Hebrews 2:10 of "many
sons." From the point of view of the Lord Jesus they are "brethren"; from the
point of view of God the Father they are "sons." Both words in this context
convey the idea of maturity. God is seeking full-grown sons; but he does not
stop even there. For he does not want his sons to live in a barn or a garage
or a field; he wants them in his home; he wants them to share his glory. That
is the explanation of Romans 8:30: "Whom he justified, them he also
glorified." Sonship—the full expression of his Son—is God's goal in the many
sons. How could he bring that about? By justifying them, and then by
glorifying them. In his dealings with them God will never stop short of that
goal. He set himself to have sons, and to have those sons, mature and
responsible, with him in glory. He made provision for the whole of heaven to
be peopled with glorified sons. That was his purpose in the redemption of
mankind.
THE GRAIN OF WHEAT
But how could God's only begotten Son become his first begotten? The
method is explained in John 12:24: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a
grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die,
it beareth much fruit." Who was that grain? It was the Lord Jesus. In the
whole universe God put his one grain of wheat into the ground and it died,
and in resurrection the only begotten grain became the first begotten grain,
and from the one grain there have sprung many grains.
In respect of his divinity the Lord Jesus remains uniquely "the only
begotten Son of God." Yet there is a sense in which, from the resurrection
onward through all eternity, he is also the first begotten, and his life from that
time is found in many brethren. For we who are born of the Spirit are made
thereby "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), though not, mark you,
as of ourselves but only, as we shall see in a moment, in dependence upon
God and by virtue of our being "in Christ." We have "received the spirit of
adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth witness
with our spirit, that we are children of God" (Rom. 8:15, 16). It was by way of
the Incarnation and the Cross that the Lord Jesus made this possible.
Therein was the Father-heart of God satisfied, for in the Son's obedience unto
death the Father has secured his many sons.
The first and the twentieth chapters of John are in this respect most
precious. In the beginning of his Gospel John tells us that Jesus was "the
only begotten from the Father." At the end of his Gospel he tells us how, after
he had died and risen again, Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, "Go unto my
brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my
God and your God" (John 20:17). Hitherto in this Gospel the Lord had spoken
often of "the Father" or of "my Father." Now, in resurrection, he adds, "... and
your Father." It is the eldest Son, the first begotten speaking. By his death
and resurrection many brethren have been brought into God's family, and so,
in the same verse he uses this very name for them, calling them "my
brethren." By doing this he affirms that he "is not ashamed to call them
brethren" (Heb. 2:11).
THE CHOICE THAT CONFRONTED ADAM
God planted a great number of trees in the garden of Eden, but "in the
midst of the garden"— that is, in a place of special prominence—he planted
two trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Adam was created innocent; he had no knowledge of good and evil. Think of
a grown man, say thirty years old, who has no sense of right or wrong, no
power to differentiate between the two! Would you not say such a man was
undeveloped? Well, that is exactly what Adam was. And God brings him into
the garden and says to him, in effect, "Now the garden is full of trees, full of
fruits, and of the fruit of every tree you may eat freely. But in the very midst of
the garden is one tree called 'the tree of the knowledge of good and evil'; you
must not eat of that, for in the day that you do so you will surely die. But
remember, the name of the other tree close by is Life." What then, is the
meaning of these two trees? Adam was, to so speak, created morally
neutral—neither sinful nor holy, but innocent—and God put those two trees
there so that he might exercise free choice. He could choose the tree of life,
or he could choose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Now the knowledge of good and evil, though forbidden to Adam, is not
wrong in itself. Without it however, Adam is in a sense limited in that he
cannot decide for himself on moral issues. Judgment of right and wrong
resides not in him but in God, and Adam's only course when faced with any
question is to refer it to Jehovah God. Thus you have a life in the garden
which is totally dependent on God. These two trees, then, typify two deep
principles; they represent two plans of life, the divine and the human. The
"tree of life" is God himself, for God is life. He is the highest form of life, and
he is also the source and goal of life. And the fruit: what is that? It is our Lord
Jesus Christ. You cannot eat the tree but you can eat the fruit. No one is
able to receive God as God, but we can receive the Lord Jesus. The fruit is
the edible part, the receivable part of the tree. So—may I say it reverently?—
the Lord Jesus is really God in a receivable form. God in Christ we can
receive.
If Adam should take of the tree of life, he would partake of the life of God.
Thus he would become a "son" of God, in the sense of having in him a life
that derived from God. There you would have God's life in union with man: a
race of men having the life of God in them and living in constant dependence
upon God for that life. But if instead Adam should turn the other way, and
take of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then he would develop his
own manhood along natural lines apart from God. As a self-sufficient being,
he would possess in himself the power to form independent judgment, but he
would have no life from God.
So this was the alternative that lay before him. Choosing the way of the
Spirit, the way of obedience, he could become a "son" of God, living in
dependence upon God for his life; or, taking the natural course, he could put
the finishing touch to himself, as it were, by becoming a self-dependent being,
judging and acting apart from God. The history of humanity is the outcome of
the choice he made.
ADAM'S CHOICE THE REASON FOR THE CROSS
Adam chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and thereby took
up independent ground. In doing so he became (as men are now in their own
eyes) a "fully developed" man. He could command a knowledge; he could
decide for himself; he could go on, or stop. From then on he was "wise" (Gen.
3:6). But the consequence for him was death rather than life, because the
choice he had made involved complicity with Satan, and brought him
therefore under the judgment of God. That is why access to the tree of life
had thereafter to be forbidden to him.
Two planes of life had been set before Adam: that of divine life in
dependence upon God, and that of human life with its "independent"
resources. Adam's choice of the latter was sin, because thereby he allied
himself with Satan to thwart the eternal purpose of God. He did so by
choosing to develop his manhood—to become perhaps a very fine man, even
by his standards a "perfect" man—apart from God. But the end was death,
because he had not in him the divine life necessary to realize God's purpose
in his being, but had chosen to become instead an "independent" agent of the
Enemy. Thus in Adam we all become sinners, equally dominated by Satan,
equally subject to the law of sin and death, and equally deserving of the wrath
of God.
From this we see the divine reason for the death and resurrection of the
Lord Jesus. We see too the divine reason for true consecration—for
reckoning ourselves to be dead unto sin but alive unto God in Christ Jesus,
and for presenting ourselves unto him as alive from the dead. We must all go
to the Cross, because what is in us by nature is a self-life, subject to the law
of sin. Adam chose a self-life rather than a divine life; so God had to gather
up all that was in Adam and do away with it. Our "old man" has been
crucified. God has put us all in Christ and crucified him as the last Adam, and
thus all that is of Adam has passed away.
Then Christ arose in new form; with a body still, but in the Spirit, no
longer in the flesh. "The last Adam became a life-giving spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45).
The Lord Jesus now has a resurrected body, a spiritual body, a glorious body,
and since he is no longer in the flesh, he can now be received by all. "He that
eateth me, he also shall live because of me," said Jesus (John 6:57). The
Jews revolted at the thought of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, but of
course they could not receive him then because he was still literally in the
flesh. Now that he is in the Spirit, every one of us can receive him, and it is
by partaking of his resurrection life that we are constituted children of God.
"As many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of
God ... which were born ... of God" (John 1:12, 13).
God is not out to reform our life. It is not his aim to bring that life to a
certain stage of refinement, for it is on a totally wrong plane. On that plane he
cannot now bring man to glory. He must have a new man; one born anew,
born of God. Regeneration and justification go together.
HE THAT HATH THE SON HATH THE LIFE
There are various planes of life. Human life lies between the life of the
lower animals and the life of God. We cannot bridge the gulf that divides us
from the plane above or the plane below, and the distance that separates us
from the life of God is vastly greater than that which separates us from the life
of the lower animals.
One day in China, I called on a Christian leader who was sick in bed, and
whom, for the sake of this story, I shall call "Mr. Wong" (though that was not
his real name). He was a very learned man, a Doctor of Philosophy, and one
esteemed throughout the whole of China for his high moral principles, and he
had long been engaged in Christian work. But he did not believe in the need
for generation; he only proclaimed to men a social gospel of love and good
works.
When I called on Mr. Wong, his pet dog was by his bedside, and after
speaking with him of the things of God and of the nature of his work in us, I
pointed to the dog and inquired his name. He told me he was called Fido. "Is
Fido his Christian name or his surname?" I asked (using the common
Chinese terms for "personal name" and "family name"). "Oh, that is just his
name," he said. "Do you mean that is just his Christian name? Can I call him
Fido Wong?" I continued. "Certainly not!" came the emphatic reply. "But he
lives in your family," I protested. "Why don't you call him Fido Wong?" Then,
indicating his two daughters, I asked, "Are your daughters not called Miss
Wong?" "Yes!" "Well then, why cannot I call your dog Master Wong?" The
Doctor laughed, and I went on: "Do you see what I am getting at? Your
daughters were born into your family and they bear your name because you
have communicated your life to them. Your dog may be an intelligent dog, a
well-behaved dog, and altogether a most remarkable dog; but the question is
not, Is he a good or a bad dog? It is merely, Is he a dog? He does not need
to be bad to be disqualified from being a member of your family; he only
needs to be a dog. The same principle applies to you in your relationship to
God. The question is not whether you are a bad man or a good man, more or
less, but simply, Are you a man? If your life is on a lower plane than that of
God's life, then you cannot belong to the divine family. Throughout your life
your aim in preaching has been to turn bad men into good men; but men as
such, whether good or bad, can have no vital relationship with God. Our only
hope as men is to receive the Son of God, and when we do so, his life in us
will constitute us sons of God." The Doctor saw the truth, and that day he
became a member of God's family by receiving the Son of God into his heart.
What we today possess in Christ is more than Adam lost. Adam was
only a developed man. He remained on that plane, and never possessed the
life of God. But when we receive the Son of God, not only do we receive the
forgiveness of sins; we receive also the divine life which was represented in
the garden by the tree of life. By the new birth we possess what Adam
missed, for we receive a life he never had.
THEY ARE ALL OF ONE
God's desire is for sons who shall be joint-heirs with Christ in glory. That
is his goal; but how can he bring that about? Turn now to Hebrews 2:10 and
11: "It became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things,
in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect
through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified
are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren."
There are two parties mentioned here, namely, "many sons" and "the
author of their salvation," or, in different terms, "he that sanctifieth" and "they
that are sanctified." But these two parties are said to be "all of one." The
Lord Jesus as Man derived his life from God, and (in another sense, but just
as truly) we derive our new life from God. He was "begotten ... of the Holy
Ghost" (Matt. 1:20 mg.), and we were "born of ... the Spirit," "born ... of God"
(John 3:5; 1:13). So, God says, we are all of One. "Of" in the Greek means
"out of." The first begotten Son and the man sons are all (though in different
senses) "out of" the one Source of life. Do you realize that we have the same
life today that God has? The life which he possesses in heaven is the life
which he has imparted to us here on the earth. That is the precious "gift of
God" (Rom. 6:23). It is for this reason that we can live a life of holiness, for it
is not our own life that has been changed, but the life of God that has been
imparted to us.
Do you notice that, in this consideration of the eternal purpose, the whole
question of sin ultimately goes out? It no longer has a place. Sin came in
with Adam, and even when it has been dealt with, as it has to be, we are only
brought back to the point where Adam was. But in relating us again to the
divine purpose—in, as it were, restoring to us access to the tree of life—
redemption has given us far more than Adam ever had. It has made us
partakers of the very life of God himself.
Chapter Seven Comments and Questions
The Eternal Purpose
This remarkable chapter is so clear that it hardly permits of any
amplification or explanation. It constitutes not so much an interlude in the
development of Nee's subjects as a background to all the rest. It takes us into
God's confidence, so explaining the normal Christian life from His viewpoint.
We might have passed it over all too lightly if it had been the first chapter; but
since we now consider it in the light of all that we have been studying, it gives
meaning and purpose to all the rest.
If we can grasp Watchman Nee's exposition of the radical difference
between man as he is and man as God meant him to be, we will agree that
the Cross was absolutely necessary, for the old man could have no part in
this eternal purpose of God, but needs to be put away and replaced by His
New Man.
We must be profoundly moved by the unveiling of God's heart which
shows Him to be not only Creator but a Father who longs for a family of sons
and daughters. This lifts our thinking out of the academic considerations of
the theologians and even the human problems of man's sin and holiness,
disclosing to us what God must have suffered in His relationships with the
human race. Happily it reveals also the glory of the Cross.
Bible Reading: Romans 8:16-30
Chapter Sub-headings
Firstborn Among Many Brethren
The Grain of Wheat
The Choice that Confronted Adam
Adam's Choice the Reason for the Cross
He that Hath the Son Hath the Life
They are All of One
Questions
1. What is God's unchanging purpose for man?
2. What is God's purpose for His Son in relation to man?
3. 'He cannot do without me.' Is this true? If so, give some reasons why
God needs us.
4. What difference does Nee make between 'the only begotten Son' and
the 'first begotten'?
5. 'Abba, Father.' Find the only occasion on which it is recorded that
Jesus so addressed the Father, and suggest how this term accords with
what has previously been said about the believer's choice of the will of
God.
6. Describe the difference between the un-fallen Adam and the same
man after the Fall.
7. In what respects are we all, as sinners, equal to Adam?
8. Where was Mr. Wong wrong in trying to turn bad men into good?
9. 'What we possess is more than Adam lost.’ This is true, but does it
mean that if man had not sinned and needed redemption, he would
never have enjoyed the glory to which we are called as sons of God? Or
was there a destiny for Adam which he forfeited?
10. Eternal life is described as a gift to be received and possessed.
Does this mean that we can carry it around in independence, as we
might any ordinary gift?
Chapter 8
The Holy Spirit
We have spoken of the eternal purpose of God as the motive and
explanation of all his dealings with us. Now, before we return to our study of
the phases of Christian experience as set forth in Romans, we must digress
yet again in order to consider something which lies at the heart of all our
experience as the vitalizing power of effective life and service. I refer to the
personal presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit of God.
And here, too, let us take as our starting-point two verses from Romans,
one from each of our sections. "The love of God hath been shed abroad in
our hearts through the Holy Ghost which was given unto us" (Rom. 5:5). "If
any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Rom. 8:9).
God does not give his gifts at random, nor dispense them in an arbitrary
fashion. They are given freely to all, but they are given on a definite basis.
God has truly "blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
in Christ" (Eph. 1:3), but if those blessings which are ours in Christ are to
become ours in experience, we must know on what ground we can
appropriate them.
In considering the gift of the Holy Spirit it is helpful to think of this in two
aspects, as the Spirit outpoured and the Spirit indwelling, and our purpose
now is to understand on what basis this twofold gift of the Holy Spirit becomes
ours. I have no doubt that we are right in distinguishing thus between the
outward and the inward manifestations of his working, and that as we go on
we shall find the distinction helpful. Moreover, when we compare them, we
cannot but come to the conclusion that the inward activity of the Holy Spirit is
the more precious. But to say this is not for one moment to imply that his
outward activity is not also precious, for God only gives good gifts to his
children.
Unfortunately we are apt to esteem our privileges lightly by reason of
their sheer abundance. The Old Testament saints, who were not as favored
as we are, could appreciate more readily than we do the preciousness of this
gift of the outpoured Spirit. In their day it was a gift given only to the few—
chiefly to priests, judges, kings and prophets—whereas now it is the portion of
every child of God. Think! we who are mere nonentities can have the same
Spirit resting upon us as rested upon Moses the friend of God, upon David the
beloved king, and upon Elijah the mighty prophet. By receiving the gift of the
outpoured Holy Spirit we join the ranks of God's chosen servants of the Old
Testament dispensation. Once we see the value of this gift of God, and
realize too our deep need of it, we shall immediately ask, How can I receive
the Holy Spirit in this way, to equip me with spiritual gifts and to empower me
for God's service? Upon what basis has the Spirit been given to his children?
THE SPIRIT OUTPOURED
Let us turn first to the Book of the Acts chapter 2 verses 32 to 36 and
consider this passage briefly:
"(32) This Jesus did God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses. (33)
Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the
Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath poured forth this, which ye see
and hear. (34) For David ascended not into the heavens; but he saith himself,
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, (35) Till I make thine
enemies the footstool of thy feet. (36) Let all the house of Israel therefore
know assuredly, that God hath made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus
whom ye crucified."
We will set aside for the moment verses 34 and 35, and consider verses
33 and 36 together. The former are a quotation from the 110th Psalm and are
really a parenthesis, so we shall get the force of Peter's argument better if we
ignore them for the time being. In verse 33 Peter states that the Lord Jesus
was exalted "at the right hand of God" (mg.). What was the result? He
"received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost." And what followed?
The miracle of Pentecost! The result of his exaltation was—"this, which ye
see and hear."
Upon what basis, then, was the Spirit first given to the Lord Jesus to be
poured out upon his people? It was upon the fact of his exaltation to heaven.
This passage makes it quite clear that the Holy Spirit was poured out because
Jesus was exalted. The outpouring of the Spirit has no relation to your merits
or mine, but only to the merits of the Lord Jesus. The question of what we are
does not come into consideration at all here, but only what he is. He is
glorified; therefore the Spirit is poured out.
Because the Lord Jesus died on the Cross, I have received forgiveness
of sins; because the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, I have received new life;
because the Lord Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of the Father, I
have received the outpoured Spirit. All is because of him; nothing is because
of me. Remission of sins is not based on human merit, but on the Lord's
crucifixion; regeneration is not based on human merit, but on the Lord's
resurrection; and the enduement with the Holy Spirit is not based on human
merit, but on the Lord's exaltation. The Holy Spirit has not been poured out
on you or me to prove how great we are, but to prove the greatness of the
Son of God.
Now look at verse 36. There is a word here which demands our careful
attention: the word "therefore." How is this word generally used? Not to
introduce a statement, but to follow a statement that has already been made.
Its use always implies that something has been mentioned before. Now what
has preceded this particular "therefore"? With which is it connected? It
cannot reasonably be connected with either verse 34 or verse 35, but it quite
obviously relates back to verse 33. Peter has just referred to the outpouring
of the Spirit upon the disciples "which ye see and hear," and he says: "Let all
the house of Israel therefore know assuredly, that God hath made him both
Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified." Peter says, in effect, to his
audience: "This outpouring of the Spirit, which you have witnessed with your
own eyes and ears, proves that Jesus of Nazareth whom ye crucified is now
both Lord and Christ." The Holy Spirit was poured out on earth to prove what
had taken place in heaven—the exaltation of Jesus of Nazareth to the right
hand of God. The purpose of Pentecost is to prove the Lordship of Jesus
Christ.
There was a young man named Joseph, who was dearly loved of his
father. One day news reached the father of the death of his son, and for
years Jacob lamented Joseph's loss. But Joseph was not in the grave; he
was in a place of glory and power. After Jacob had been mourning the death
of his son for years, it was suddenly reported to him that Joseph was alive
and in a high position in Egypt. At first Jacob could not take it in. It was too
good to be true. But ultimately he was persuaded that the story of Joseph's
exaltation was really a fact. How did he come to believe in it? He went out,
and saw the chariots that Joseph had sent from Egypt.
What do those chariots represent? They surely typify here the Holy
Spirit, sent both to be the evidence that God's Son is in glory, and to convey
us there. How do we know that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified by
wicked men nearly two thousand years ago, did not just die a martyr's death
but is at the Father's right hand in glory? How can we know for a surety that
he is Lord of lords and King of kings? We can know it beyond dispute
because he has poured out his Spirit upon us. Hallelujah! Jesus is Lord!
Jesus is Christ! Jesus of Nazareth is both Lord and Christ!
If the gift of the Spirit depends thus upon the exaltation of the Lord Jesus
alone, it is possible that he has been glorified and you have not received the
Spirit? On what basis did you receive forgiveness of sins? Was it because
you prayed so earnestly, or because you read your Bible from cover to cover,
or because of your regular attendance at church? Was it because of your
merits at all? No! A thousand times, No! On what ground then were your
sins forgiven? "Apart from shedding of blood there is no remission" (Heb.
9:22). The sole ground of forgiveness is the shedding of blood; and since the
precious Blood has been shed, your sins have been forgiven.
Now the principle on which we receive the enduement of the Holy Spirit is
the very same as that on which we receive forgiveness of sins. The Lord has
been crucified, therefore our sins have been forgiven; the Lord has been
glorified, therefore the Spirit has been poured out upon us. Is it possible that
the Son of God shed his Blood and that your sins, dear child of God, have not
been forgiven? Never! Then is it possible that the Son of God has been
glorified and you have not received the Spirit? Never!
Some of you may say: I agree with all this, but I have no experience of it.
Am I to sit down smugly and say I have everything, when I know perfectly well
I have nothing? No, we must never rest content with objective facts alone.
We need subjective experience also; but that experience will only come as we
rest upon divine facts. God's facts are the basis of our experience.
Go back again to the question of justification. How were you justified?
Not by doing anything at all, but by accepting the fact that the Lord had done
everything. And enduement with the Holy Spirit becomes yours in exactly the
same way, not by your doing anything yourself, but by your putting your faith
in what the Lord has already done.
If we lack the experience, we must ask God only for a revelation of this
eternal fact, that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the gift of the exalted Lord to
his Church. Once we see that, effort will cease, and prayer will give place to
praise. It was a revelation of what the Lord had done for the world that
brought to an end our efforts to secure forgiveness of sins, and it is a
revelation of what the Lord has done for his Church that will bring to an end
our efforts to secure the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We work because we
have not seen the work of Christ. But when once we have seen that, faith will
spring up in our hearts, and as we believe, experience will follow.
Some time ago a young man, who had only been a Christian for five
weeks and who had formerly been violently opposed to the Gospel, attended
a series of meetings which I was addressing in Shanghai. At the close of one
in which I was speaking on the above lines, he went home and began to pray
earnestly, "Lord, I do want the power of the Holy Spirit. Seeing thou hast now
been glorified, wilt thou not now pour out thy Spirit upon me?" Then he
corrected himself: "Oh no, Lord, that's all wrong!" and began to pray again:
"Lord Jesus, we are in a life-partnership, thou and I, and the Father has
promised us two things—glory for thee, and the Spirit for me. Thou, Lord,
hast received the glory; therefore it is unthinkable that I have not received the
Spirit. Lord, I praise thee! Thou hast already received the glory, and I have
already received the Spirit." From that day the power of the Spirit was
consciously upon him.
FAITH IS AGAIN THE KEY
As with forgiveness, so equally with the coming upon us of the Holy
Spirit, the whole question is one of faith. As soon as we see the Lord Jesus
on the Cross, we know our sins are forgiven; and as soon as we see the Lord
Jesus on the Throne, we know the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon us.
The basis upon which we receive the enduement of the Holy Spirit is not our
praying and fasting and waiting, but the exaltation of Christ. Those who
emphasize tarrying and hold "tarrying meetings" only mislead us, for the gift is
not for the "favored few" but for all, because it is not given on the ground of
what we are at all, but of what Christ is. The Spirit has been poured out to
prove his goodness and greatness, not ours. Christ has been crucified,
therefore we have been forgiven: Christ has been glorified, therefore we have
been endued with power from on high. It is all because of him.
Suppose an unbeliever expresses the desire to be saved, and you
explain to him the way of salvation and pray with him. Suppose he then prays
after this fashion: "Lord Jesus, I believe thou hast died for me, and that thou
canst blot out all my sins. I truly believe thou wilt forgive me." Have you any
confidence that that man is saved? When will you rest assured that he has
really been born again? Not when he prays: "Lord, I believe thou wilt forgive
my sins," but when he says: "Lord, I thank thee that thou hast forgiven my
sins. Thou hast died for me; therefore my sins are blotted out." You believe a
person is saved when his prayer yields to praise, and from asking the Lord to
forgive him, he turns to praising him that he has already done so because the
Blood of the Lamb has already been shed.
In the same way, you can pray and wait for years and never experience
the Spirit's power; but when you cease to plead with the Lord to pour out his
Spirit upon you, and when instead you trustfully praise him that the Spirit has
been poured out because the Lord Jesus has been glorified, you will find that
your problem is solved. Praise God! no single child of his need agonize, nor
even wait, for the Spirit to be given. Jesus is not going to be made Lord, he is
Lord. Therefore I am not going to receive the Spirit; I have received the Spirit.
It is all a question of the faith which comes by revelation. When our eyes are
opened to see that the Spirit has already been poured out because Jesus has
already been glorified, then prayer turns to praise in our hearts.
All spiritual blessings come to us on a definite basis. God's gifts are
freely given, but there are conditions to be fulfilled on our part before their
reception is possible. There is a passage in God's Word which states the
conditions of receiving the outpoured Spirit: "Repent ye, and be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins;
and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For to you is the promise, and
to your children, and to all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God
shall call unto him" (Acts 2:38, 39).
Four things are mentioned here: Repentance, Baptism, Forgiveness and
the Holy Spirit. The first two are conditions, the second two are gifts. What
are the conditions to be fulfilled if we are to have forgiveness of sins?
According to this scripture they are two: repentance and baptism.
First is repentance, which means a change of mind! Formerly I thought
sin a pleasant thing, but now I have changed my mind about it; formerly I
thought the world an attractive place, but now I know better; formerly I
regarded it a miserable business to be a Christian, but now I think differently.
Once I thought certain things delightful, now I think them vile; once I thought
other things utterly worthless, now I think them most precious. That is a
change of mind, and that is repentance. No life can be truly changed apart
from such a change of mind.
The second condition is baptism. Baptism is an outward expression of
an inward faith. When in my heart I truly believe that I have died, have been
buried and have risen with Christ, then I ask for baptism. Thereby I declare
publicly what I believe privately. Baptism is faith in action.
Here then are two divinely appointed conditions of forgiveness—
repentance, and faith publicly expressed. Have you repented? Have you
testified publicly to your union with your Lord? Then have you received
remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost? You say you have only
received the first gift, not the second. But, my friend, God offered you two
things if you fulfilled two conditions! Why have you only taken one? What are
you doing about the second?
Suppose I went into a bookshop, selected a two-volume book, priced at
ten shillings, and, having put down a ten-shilling note, walked out of the shop,
carelessly leaving one volume on the counter. When I reached home and
discovered the oversight, what do you think I should do? I should go straight
back to the shop to get the forgotten book, but I should not dream of paying
anything for it. I should simply remind the shopkeeper that both volumes
were duly paid for, and ask him if he would therefore kindly let me have the
second one; and without any further payment I should march happily out of
the shop with my possession under my arm. Would you not do the same
under the same circumstances?
But you are under the same circumstances. If you have fulfilled the
conditions, you are entitled to two gifts, not just to one. You have already
taken the one; why not just come and take the other now? Say to the Lord,
"Lord, I have complied with the conditions for receiving remission of sins and
the gift of the Holy Ghost, but I have foolishly taken only the former. Now at
length I have come back to thee to take the gift of the Holy Ghost, and to
praise thee for it."
THE DIVERSITY OF THE EXPERIENCE
But you ask: "How shall I know that the Holy Spirit is come upon me?" I
cannot tell how you will know, but you will know. No description has been
given us of the personal sensations and emotions of the disciples at
Pentecost. We do not know exactly how they felt, but we do know that their
feelings and behavior were somewhat abnormal, because people seeing
them said they were intoxicated. When the Holy Spirit falls upon God's
people there will be some things which the world cannot account for. There
will be supernatural accompaniments of some kind, though it be no more than
an overwhelming sense of the divine Presence. We cannot and we must not
stipulate what particular form such outward expressions will take in any given
case, but one thing is sure, that each one upon whom the Spirit of God falls
will unfailingly know it.
When the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples at Pentecost there was
something quite extraordinary about their behavior, and Peter offered an
explanation from God's Word to all who witnessed it. This, in substance, is
what he said: "When the Holy Spirit falls upon believers, some will prophesy,
some will dream dreams, and others will see visions. This is what God has
stated through the prophet Joel." But did Peter prophesy? Well, hardly in the
sense in which Joel meant it. Did the hundred and twenty prophesy or see
visions? We are not told that they did. Did they dream dreams? How could
they, for were they not all wide awake? Well then, what did Peter mean by
using a quotation that seems scarcely to fit the case at all? In the passage
quoted (Joel 2:28, 29), prophecy, dreams, and visions are said to accompany
the outpouring of the Spirit, yet these evidences were apparently lacking at
Pentecost.
On the other hand, Joel's prophecy said not a word about "a sound as of
the rushing of a mighty wind," nor about "tongues parting asunder like as of
fire" as accompaniments of the Spirit's outpouring; yet these were manifest in
that upper room. And where in Joel do we find mention of speaking in other
tongues? And yet the disciples at Pentecost did so.
What did Peter mean? Imagine him quoting God's Word to show that the
experience of Pentecost was the outpouring of the Spirit spoken of by Joel,
without a single one of the evidences mentioned by Joel being found at
Pentecost. What the Book mentioned the disciples lacked, and what the
disciples had the Book did not mention! It looks as though Peter's quotation
of the Book disproves his point rather than proving it. What is the explanation
of this mystery?
Let us recall that Peter was himself speaking under the control of the
Holy Spirit. The Book of the Acts was written by the Spirit's inspiration, and
not one word was spoken at random. There is no misfit, but a perfect
harmony. Note carefully that Peter did not say: "What you see and hear
fulfills what was spoken by the prophet Joel." What he was was: "This is that
which hath been spoken by the prophet Joel" (Acts 2:16). It was not a case of
fulfillment, but of an experience of the same order. "This is that" means that
"this which you see and hear is of the same order as that which is foretold."
When it is a case of fulfillment, each experience is reduplicated, and prophecy
is prophecy, dreams are dreams, and visions are visions; but when Peter
says "This is that," it is not a question of the one being a replica of the other,
but of the one belonging to the same category as the other. "This" amounts
to the same thing as "that"; "this" is the equivalent of "that"; "this is that."
What is being emphasized by the Holy Spirit through Peter is the diversity of
the experience. The outward evidences may be many and varied, and we
have to admit that occasionally they are strange; but the Spirit is one, and he
is Lord. (See 1 Cor. 12:4-6.)
What happened to R. A. Torrey when the Holy Spirit came upon him after
he had been a minister for years? We will let him tell the story in his own
words:
"I recall the exact spot where I was kneeling in prayer in my study.... It
was a very quiet moment, one of the most quiet moments I ever knew....
Then God simply said to me, not in any audible voice, but in my heart,
'It's yours. Now go and preach.' He had already said it to me in His Word
in 1 John 5:14, 15; but I did not then know my Bible as I know it now, and
God had pity on my ignorance and said it directly to my soul.... I went
and preached, and I have been a new minister from that day to this....
Some time after this experience (I do not recall just how long after), while
sitting in my room one day ... suddenly ... I found myself shouting (I was
not brought up to shout and I am not of a shouting temperament, but I
shouted like the loudest shouting Methodist), 'Glory to God, glory to God,
glory to God,' and I could not stop.... But that was not when I was
baptized with the Holy Spirit. I was baptized with the Holy Spirit when I
took him by simple faith in the Word of God." (The Holy Spirit, who he is
and what he does, by R. A. Torrey, D.D., pp. 198-9.)
The outward manifestations in Torrey's case were not the same as those
described by Joel or by Peter, but "this is that." It is not a facsimile, yet it is
the same thing.
And how did D. L. Moody feel and act when the Spirit of God came upon
him to transform his life and ministry?
"I was crying all the time that God would fill me with his Spirit. Well,
one day, in the city of New York—oh, what a day!—I cannot describe it, I
seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul
had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only
say that God revealed himself to me, and I had such an experience of his
love that I had to ask him to stay his hand. I went preaching again. The
sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths; and yet
hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was
before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world—it
would be as the small dust of the balance." (The Life of Dwight L. Moody,
by his son, W. R. Moody, p. 149.)
The outward manifestations that accompanied Moody's experience did
not tally exactly with Joel's description, or Peter's, or Torrey's, but who could
doubt that "this" which Moody experienced was "that" experienced by the
disciples at Pentecost? It was not the same in manifestation, but it was the
very same in essence.
And what was the experience of the great Charles Finney when the
power of the Holy Ghost came upon him?
"I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost without any expectation
of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such
thing for me, without my recollection that I had ever heard the thing
mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Spirit descended upon
me in a manner that seemed to go through me body and soul. No words
can express the wonderful love that was shed abroad in my heart. I wept
aloud with joy and love." (Autobiography of Charles E. Finney, chapter 2.)
Finney's experience was not a duplicate of Pentecost, nor of Torrey's
experience, nor yet of Moody's; but "this" certainly was "that."
When the Holy Spirit is poured out upon God's people their experiences
will differ widely. Some will receive new vision, others will know a new liberty
in soul-winning, others will proclaim the Word of God with fresh power, and
yet others will be filled with heavenly joy or overflowing praise. "This ... and
this ... and this ... is that!" Let us praise the Lord for every new experience
that relates to the exaltation of Christ, and of which it can truly be said that
"this" is an evidence of "that." There is nothing stereotyped about God's
dealings with his children. Therefore we must not, by our prejudices and
preconceptions, make water-tight compartments for the working of his Spirit,
either in our own lives or in the lives of others. This applies equally to those
who require some particular manifestation (such as "speaking with tongues")
as evidence that the Spirit has come upon them, and to those who deny that
any manifestation is given at all. We must leave God free to work as he wills,
and to give what evidence he pleases of the work he does. He is Lord, and it
is not for us to legislate for him.
Let us rejoice that Jesus is on the throne, and let us praise him that,
since he has been glorified, the Spirit has been poured out upon us all. As we
behold him there, and accept the divine fact in all the simplicity of faith, we
shall know it with such assurance in our own hearts that we shall dare to
proclaim once again with confidence—"This is that!"
THE SPIRIT INDWELLING
We move on now to the second aspect of the gift of the Holy Spirit,
which, as we shall see in our next chapter, is more particularly the subject of
Romans 8. It is that which we have spoken of as the Spirit indwelling. "If so
be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ..." (Rom. 8:9). "If the Spirit of him
that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you ..." (Rom. 8:11).
As with the Spirit outpoured, so with the Spirit indwelling, if we are to
know in experience that which is ours in fact, our first need is of divine
revelation. When we see Christ as Lord objectively—that is, exalted to the
throne in heaven—then we shall experience the power of the Spirit upon us.
When we see Christ as Lord subjectively—that is, as effective Ruler within our
lives—then we shall know the power of the Spirit within us.
A revelation of the indwelling Spirit was the remedy Paul offered the
Corinthian Christians for their unspirituality. It is important to note that the
Christians in Corinth had become preoccupied with the visible signs of the
Holy Spirit's outpouring and were making much of "tongues" and miracles,
while at the same time their lives were full of contradictions and were a
reproach to the Lord's Name. Quite evidently they had received the Holy
Spirit, and yet they remained spiritually immature; and the remedy God
offered them for this is the remedy he offers his Church today for the same
complaint.
In his letter to them Paul wrote: "Know ye not that ye are a temple of
God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (1 Cor. 3:16). For others he
prayed for enlightenment of heart, “. . . that ye may know" (Eph. 1:18). A
knowledge of divine facts was the need of the Christians then, and it is no
less the need of Christians today. We need the eyes of our understanding
opened to know that God himself, through the Holy Spirit, has taken up his
abode in our hearts. In the person of the Spirit, God is present, and Christ is
no less truly present too. Thus if the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts we have
the Father and the Son abiding in us. That is no mere theory or doctrine, but
a blessed reality. We may perhaps have realized that the Spirit is actually
within our hearts, but have we realized that he is a Person? Have we
understood that to have the Spirit with us is to have the living God within?
To many Christians the Holy Spirit is quite unreal. They regard him as a
mere influence—an influence for good, no doubt, but just an influence for all
that. In their thinking, conscience and the Spirit are more or less identified as
some "thing" within them, that brings them to book when they are bad and
tries to show them how to be good. The trouble with the Corinthian Christians
was not that they lacked the indwelling Spirit but that they lacked the
knowledge of his presence. They failed to realize the greatness of the One
who had come to make his abode in their hearts; so Paul wrote to them:
"Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth
in you?" Yes, that was the remedy for their unspirituality—just to know who
he really was who dwelt within.
THE TREASURE IN THE VESSEL
Do you know, my friends, that the Spirit within you is very God? Oh that
our eyes were opened to see the greatness of God's gift! Oh that we might
realize the vastness of the resources secreted in our own hearts! I could
shout with joy as I think, "The Spirit who dwells within me is no mere
influence, but a living Person; he is very God. The infinite God is within my
heart!" I am at a loss to convey to you the blessedness of this discovery, that
the Holy Spirit dwelling within my heart is a Person. I can only repeat: "He is
a Person!" and repeat it again: "He is a Person!" and repeat it yet again: "He
is a Person!" Oh, my friends, I would fain repeat it to you a hundred times—
The Spirit of God within me is a Person! I am only an earthen vessel, but in
that earthen vessel I carry a treasure of unspeakable worth, even the Lord of
glory.
All the worry and fret of God's children would end if their eyes were
opened to see the greatness of the treasure hid in their hearts. Do you know,
there are resources enough in your own heart to meet the demand of every
circumstance in which you will ever find yourself? Do you know there is
power enough there to move the city in which you live? Do you know there is
power enough to shake the universe? Let me tell you once more—I say it
with the utmost reverence: You who have been born again of the Spirit of
God—you carry God in your heart!
All the flippancy of the children of God would cease too if they realized
the greatness of the treasure deposited within them. If you have only ten
shillings in your pocket you can march gaily along the street, talking lightly as
you go, and swinging your stick in the air. It matters little if you lose your
money, for there is not much at stake. But if you carry a thousand pounds in
your pocket, the position is vastly different, and your whole demeanor will be
different too. There will be great gladness in your heart, but no careless
jaunting along the road; and once in a while you will slacken your pace and
slipping your hand into your pocket, you will quietly finger your treasure again,
and then with joyful solemnity continue on your way.
In Old Testament times there were hundreds of tents in the camp of
Israel, but there was one tent quite different from all the rest. In the common
tents you could do just as you pleased—eat or fast, work or rest, be joyful or
sober, noisy or silent. But that other tent was a tent that commanded
reverence and awe. You might move in and out of the common tents talking
noisily and laughing gaily, but as soon as you neared that special tent you
instinctively walked more quietly, and when you stood right before it you
bowed your head in solemn silence. No one could touch it with impunity. If
man or beast dared to do so, death was the sure penalty. What was so very
special about it? It was the temple of the living God. There was little unusual
about the tent itself, for it was outwardly of very ordinary material, but the
great God had chosen to make it his abode.
Do you realize what happened at your conversion? God came into your
heart and made it his temple. In Solomon's days God dwelt in a temple made
of stone: today he dwells in a temple composed of living believers. When we
really see that God has made our hearts his dwelling-place, what a deep
reverence will come over our lives! All lightness, all frivolity will end, and all
self-pleasing too, when we know that we are the temple of God and that the
Spirit of God dwells within us. Has it really come home to you that wherever
you go you carry with you the Holy Spirit of God? You do not just carry your
Bible with you, or even much good teaching about God, but God himself.
The reason why many Christians do not experience the power of the
Spirit, though he actually dwells in their hearts, is that they lack reverence.
And they lack reverence because they have not had their eyes opened of the
fact of his presence. The fact is there, but they have not seen it. Why is it
that some of God's children live victorious lives while others are in a state of
constant defeat? The difference is not accounted for by the presence or
absence of the Spirit (for he dwells in the heart of every child of God) but by
this, that some recognize his indwelling and others do not. True revelation of
the fact of the Spirit's indwelling will revolutionize the life of any Christian.
THE ABSOLUTE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST
"Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in
you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own; for ye were bought
with a price: glorify God therefore in your body" (1 Cor. 6:19, 20).
This verse now takes us a stage further, for, when once we have made
the discovery of the fact that we are the dwelling-place of God, then a full
surrender of ourselves to God must follow. When we see that we are the
temple of God, we shall immediately acknowledge that we are not our own.
Consecration will follow revelation.
The difference between victorious
Christians and defeated ones is not that some have the Spirit while others
have not, but that some know his indwelling and others do not, and that con-
sequently some recognize the divine ownership of their lives while others are
still their own masters.
Revelation is the first step to holiness, and consecration is the second. A
day must come in our lives, as definite as the day of our conversion, when we
give up all right to ourselves and submit to the absolute Lordship of Jesus
Christ. There may be a practical issue raised by God to test the reality of our
consecration, but whether that be so or not, there must be a day when,
without reservation, we surrender everything to him—ourselves, our families,
our possessions, our business and our time. All we are and have becomes
his, to be held henceforth entirely at his disposal. From that day we are no
longer our own masters, but only stewards. Not until the Lordship of Christ in
our hearts is a settled thing can the Spirit really operate effectively in us. He
cannot direct our lives until all control of them is committed to him. If we do
not give him absolute authority there, he can be present, but he cannot be
powerful. The power of the Spirit is stayed.
Are you living for the Lord or for yourself? Perhaps that is too general a
question, so let me be more specific. Is there anything God is asking of you
that you are withholding from him? Is there any point of contention between
you and him? Not till every controversy is settled and the Holy Spirit is given
his full place can he reproduce the life of Christ in any believer.
An American friend, now with the Lord, whose name we will call Paul,
cherished the hope from his early youth that one day he would be called "Dr.
Paul." When he was quite a little chap he began to dream of the day when he
would enter the university, and he imagined himself first studying for his M.A.
degree and then for his Ph.D. Then at length the glad day would arrive when
all would greet him as "Dr. Paul."
The Lord saved him and called him to preach, and before long he
became pastor of a large congregation. By that time he had his degree and
was studying for his doctorate, but, despite splendid progress in his studies
and a good measure of success as a pastor, he was a very dissatisfied man.
He was a Christian minister, but his life was not Christ-like; he had the Spirit
of God within him, but he did not enjoy the Spirit's presence or experience his
power. He thought to himself, "I am a preacher of the Gospel and the pastor
of a church. I tell my people they should love the Word of God, but I do not
really love it myself. I exhort them to pray, but I myself have little inclination to
pray. I tell them to live a holy life, but my own life is not holy. I warn them not
to love the world, and, though outwardly I shun it, yet in my heart I myself still
love it dearly." In his distress he cried to the Lord to cause him to know the
power of the indwelling Spirit, but though he prayed and prayed for months,
no answer came. Then he fasted, and asked the Lord to show him any hindrance there might be in his life. That answer was not long in coming, and it
was this: "I long that you should know the power of my Spirit, but your heart is
set on something that I do not wish you to have. You have yielded to me all
but one thing, and that one thing you are holding to yourself—your Ph.D."
Well, to you or me it might be of little consequence whether we were
addressed as plain "Mr. Paul" or as "Dr. Paul," but to him it was his very life.
He had dreamed of it from childhood, and labored for it all through his youth,
and now the thing he prized above all else was almost within his grasp. In
two short months it would be his.
So be reasoned with the Lord in this wise: "Is there any harm for me to be
a Doctor of Philosophy? Will it not bring much more glory to thy Name to
have a Dr. Paul preaching the Gospel than a plain Mr. Paul?" But God does
not change his mind, and all Mr. Paul's sound reasoning did not alter the
Lord's word to him. Every time he prayed about the matter he got the same
answer. Then, reasoning having failed, he resorted to bargaining with the
Lord. He promised to go here or there, to do this or that, if only the Lord
would allow him to have his doctor's degree; but still the Lord did not change.
And all the while Mr. Paul was becoming more and more hungry to know the
fullness of the Spirit. This state of affairs continued to within two days of his
final examination.
It was Saturday, and Mr. Paul settled down to prepare his sermon for the
following day, but, study as he would, he could get no message. The
ambition of a lifetime was just within reach of realization, but God made it
clear that he must choose between the power he could sway through a
doctor's degree and the power of God's Spirit swaying his life. That evening
he yielded. "Lord," he said, "I am willing to be plain Mr. Paul all my days, but I
want to know the power of the Holy Ghost in my life."
He rose from his knees, and wrote a letter to his examiners asking to be
excused from the examination on the Monday, and giving his reason. Then
he retired, very happy, but not conscious of any unusual experience. Next
morning he told his congregation that for the first time in six years he had no
sermon to preach, and explained how it came about. The Lord blessed that
testimony more abundantly than any of his well-prepared sermons, and from
that time God owned him in an altogether new way. For from that day he
knew separation from the world, no longer merely as an outward thing but as
a deep inward reality, and as a result, the blessedness of the Spirit's presence
and power became his daily experience.
God is waiting for a settlement of all our controversies with him. With Mr.
Paul it was question of his doctor's degree, but with us it may be something
quite different. Our complete surrender of ourselves to the Lord generally
hinges upon some one particular thing, and God waits for that one thing. He
must have it, for he must have our all. I was greatly impressed by something
a great national leader wrote in his autobiography: "I want nothing for myself; I
want everything for my country." If a man can be willing that his country
should have everything and he himself nothing, cannot we say to our God:
"Lord, I want nothing for myself; I want all for thee. I will what thou wiliest, and
I want to have nothing outside thy will." Not until we take the place of a
servant can he take his place as Lord. He is not calling us to devote
ourselves to his cause: he is asking us to yield ourselves unconditionally to
his will. Are you prepared for that?
Another friend of mine, like Mr. Paul, had a controversy with the Lord.
Before his conversion he fell in love, and as soon as he was saved he sought
to win the one he loved to Christ, but she would have nothing to do with
spiritual things. The Lord made it clear to him that his relations with that girl
must be broken off, but he was deeply devoted to her, so he evaded the
issue, while continuing as before to serve the Lord and to win souls for him.
But he became conscious of his need for holiness, and that consciousness
marked for him the beginning of dark days. He asked for the Spirit's fullness,
that he might have power to live a holy life, but God seemed continually to
ignore his request.
One morning he had to preach in another city and he spoke from Psalm
73:25: "Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I
desire beside thee." On his return home he went to a prayer-meeting where,
to his surprise, a sister got up and read the very same verse from which,
unknown to her, he had just preached, following it with the question: "Can we
truly say: „There is none upon earth that I desire beside thee?' " There was
power in that word. It struck right home to his heart and he had to admit to
himself that he could not truthfully say he desired no one in heaven or earth
apart from his Lord. There and then he saw that, for him, everything hinged
upon his willingness to give up the girl he loved.
For some perhaps, it might not have involved so much, but for him it was
everything. So he began to reason with the Lord: "Lord, I will go to Tibet and
work for thee there if I may marry that girl." But the Lord seemed to care a
great deal more about his relationship with that girl than about his going to
Tibet, and no amount of reasoning on his part availed to effect any change of
emphasis on the part of the Lord. The controversy went on for several
months, and whenever the young man pleaded for the fullness of the Spirit,
God still pointed to the same thing. But a day came when his grace
triumphed, and that young man looked up to him and acknowledged: "Lord, I
can truly say now „There is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.' " It
was the dawn of a new day for him.
A forgiven sinner is quite different from an ordinary sinner, and a
consecrated Christian is quite different from an ordinary Christian. May the
Lord bring each of us to a definite issue regarding the question of his
Lordship. If we yield wholly to him and claim the power of his indwelling
Spirit, we need wait for no special feelings or supernatural manifestations, but
can simply look up and praise him that something has already happened. We
can confidently thank him that the glory of God has already filled his temple.
"Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you,
which ye have from God?"
Chapter Eight Comments and Questions
The Holy Spirit
This chapter is described as a digression from the main subject, but it
merits special attention and is very timely. How often have the activities and
gifts of the Holy Spirit become the subject of controversy and even acrimony!
In our group study let us determine that we will not be betrayed into acrimony,
even though we may disagree. No man has the last word on the subject, for
we are dealing with the Spirit who has such infinite variety in His Person and
ways that we cannot expect to confine Him or His activities to any rigid
system of man's teaching.
The Spirit gives diverse experiences to different people. Nee illustrates
this diversity from the Scriptures and from the history of various notable men
of God. He avoids recounting his own experiences out of modest restraint,
and certainly not because he lacked the enduement with power.
Most of Nee's message is devoted to an inspired setting forth of the
wonder and privilege of being indwelt by the Spirit of God. It is salutary for us
to appreciate that the essence of the normal Christian life is not doctrine,
procedure or experience, but a Person.
Nee began the book by stating that only Christ Himself has ever lived this
kind of life, and now we are reminded that He has come to live it in us by the
power of His Spirit.
Bible Reading: Acts 2:32-29, Romans 8:1-17
Chapter Sub-headings
The Spirit Outpoured
Faith is Again the Key
The Diversity of the Experience
The Spirit Indwelling
The Treasure in the Vessel
The Absolute Lordship of Christ
Questions
1. What are the two aspects of the gift of the Spirit? Which is the most
precious, and why?
2. What is God's purpose in pouring out His Spirit on men?
3. 'Is it possible that He has been glorified and you have not received the
Spirit?' Does this relate to the enduement with power or the indwelling,
or both?
4. Is the experience of the young Christian man a contradiction of
Christ's words in Luke 11:13?
5. What three things are mentioned together with the Holy Spirit in Acts
2:38-39?
6. Which is more likely? That the one concerned will be aware of the
Spirit's powerful presence, or that other people will recognize it?
7. What spiritual principle does Nee deduce for Peter's quotation from
Joel 2:28-29?
8. Would it be right to regard these experiences which Nee describes as
once-for-all baptisms? Or does the phrase: 'every new experience that
relates to the exaltation of Christ' refer to repeated visitations?
9. What remedy for their unspirituality did Paul offer to the Corinthians?
10. 'You carry God in your heart.' Is there some better way of
expressing what Nee meant to convey?
Chapter 9
The Meaning and Values of Romans Seven
We must return now to Romans. We broke off at the end of chapter 6 in
order to consider two related subjects, namely, God's eternal purpose, which
the motive and goal of our walk with Him, and the Holy Spirit, who supplies
the power and resource to bring us to that goal. We come now to Romans 7,
a chapter which many have felt to be almost superfluous. Perhaps indeed it
would be so if Christians really saw that the old Creation has been ruled out
by the Cross of Christ, and an entirely new creation brought in by his
resurrection. If we have come to the point where we really "know" that, and
"reckon" on that, and "present ourselves" on the basis of that, then perhaps
we have no need of Romans 7.
Others have felt that the chapter is in the wrong place. They would have
put it between the fifth and sixth chapters. After chapter 6 all is so perfect, so
straightforward; and then comes this astonishing breakdown and the cry, "O
wretched man that I am!" Could anything be more of an anticlimax? And so
some have argued that Paul is speaking here of his unregenerate experience
and of his failure, as a Jew, to keep the Law. Well, we must admit that some
of what he describes here is not a Christian experience, but none the less
many Christians do experience it. What then is the teaching of this chapter?
Romans 6 deals with freedom from sin. Romans 7 deals with freedom
from the Law. In chapter 6 Paul has told us how we could be delivered from
sin, and we concluded that this was all that was required. Chapter 7 now
teaches that deliverance from sin is not enough, but that we also need to
know deliverance from the Law. If we are not fully emancipated from the Law,
we can never know full emancipation from sin. But what is the difference
between deliverance from sin and deliverance from the Law? We all see the
value of the former, but where, we wonder, is the need for the latter? For
answer, we must first of all ask ourselves what the Law is, and what is its
special value for us.
Romans 7 has a new lesson to teach us. It is found in the discovery that
I am "in the flesh" (Rom. 7:5), that '''I am carnal" (7:14), and that "in me, that
is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing" (7:18). This goes beyond the question
of sin, for it relates also to the matter of pleasing God. We are dealing here
not with sin in its forms but with man in his carnal state. The latter includes
the former, but it takes us a stage further, for it leads to the discovery that in
this realm too we are totally impotent, and that "they that are in the flesh
cannot please God" (Rom. 8:8). How then is this discovery made? It is made
with the help of the Law.
Let us retrace our steps for a minute and attempt to describe what is
probably the experience of many. Many a Christian is truly saved and yet
bound by sin. It is not that he is necessarily living under the power of sin all
the time, but that there are certain particular sins hampering him continually
so that he commits them over and over again. One day he hears the full
message of the Gospel, that the Lord Jesus not only to cleanse away our
sins, but that when he included us sinners in his death; so that not only were
our sins dealt with, but we ourselves were dealt with too. The man's eyes are
opened and he knows he has been crucified with Christ. Two things follow
that revelation. In the first place he reckons that he has died and risen with
the Lord. In the second place, recognizing God's claim upon him, and that he
has no more right over himself, he presents himself to God as alive from the
dead. This is the commencement of a beautiful Christian life, full of praise to
the Lord.
But then he begins to reason as follows: "I have died with Christ and am
raised with him, and I have given myself over to him for ever; now I must do
something for him, since he has done so much for me. I want to please him
and do his will." So, after the step of consecration, he seeks to discover the
will of God, and sets himself to carry it out. Then he makes a strange
discovery. He thought he could do the will of God, because he thought he
loved it, but gradually he finds he does not always like it at all. At times he
even feels a distinct reluctance to pursue it, and often when he tries to put it
into practice, he finds he cannot. Then he begins to questions his experience.
He asks himself: "Did I really know? Yes! Did I really reckon? Yes! Did I
really give myself to him? Yes! Have I withdrawn my consecration? No!
Then whatever is the matter now?" For the more this man tries to do the will
of God the more he fails. Ultimately he comes to the conclusion that he never
really loved God‟s will at all, so he prays for the desire as well as the power to
do it. He confesses his disobedience and promises never to disobey again.
But scarcely has he got up from his knees when he falls once more; before he
reaches the point of victory he is conscious of defeat. Then he says to
himself: "Perhaps my last decision was not definite enough. This time I will be
absolutely definite." So he brings all his willpower to bear on the situation,
only to find greater defeat than ever awaiting him the next time a choice has
to be made. Then at last he echoes the words of Paul: "For I know that in me,
that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me, but to
do that which is good is not. For the good which I would I do not: but the evil
which I would not, that I practice" (Rom. 7:18, 19). He has reached the point
of desperation.
WHAT THE LAW TEACHES
Many Christians find themselves suddenly launched into the experience
of Romans 7 and they do not understand why. They fancy Romans 6 is quite
enough. Having grasped that, they think there can be no more question of
failure, and then to their utmost surprise they find themselves right in the
midst of Romans 7. What is the explanation?
First let us be quite clear that the death with Christ described in Romans
6 is fully adequate to cover all our need. It is the explanation of that death,
with all that follows from it in chapter 6, that is as yet incomplete. We are still
in ignorance of the truth set forth in chapter 7. For Romans 7 is given to us to
explain and make real the statement in Romans 6:14, that: "Sin shall not have
dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace." The trouble is
that we do not yet know deliverance from law. What, then, is the meaning of
Law?
Grace means that God does something for me; law means that I do
something for God. God has certain holy and righteous demands which he
places upon me: that is law. Now if law means that God requires something
of me for their fulfillment, then deliverance from law means that he no longer
requires that from me, but himself provides it. Law implies that God requires
me to do something for him; deliverance from law implies that he exempts me
from doing it, and that in grace he does it himself. I (where "I" is the "carnal"
man of chapter 7:14) need do nothing for God: that is deliverance from law.
The trouble in Romans 7 is that man in the flesh tried to do something for
God. As soon as you try to please God in that way, then you place yourself
under law, and the experience of Romans 7 begins to be yours.
As we seek to understand this, let it be settled at the outset that the fault
does not lie with the Law. Paul says, "the law is holy, and the commandment
holy, and righteous, and good" (Rom. 7:12). No, there is nothing wrong with
the Law, but there is something decidedly wrong with me. The demands of
the Law are righteous, but the person upon whom the demands are made is
unrighteous. The trouble is not that the Law's demands are unjust, but that I
am unable to meet them. It may be all right for the Government to require
payment of £100, but it will be all wrong if I have only ten shillings with which
to meet the payment!
I am a man "sold under sin" (Rom. 7:14). Sin has dominion over me.
True, as long as you leave me alone I seem to be rather a fine type of man. It
is when you ask me to do something that my sinfulness comes to light.
If you have a very clumsy servant and he just sits still and does nothing,
then his clumsiness does not appear. If he does nothing all day he will be of
little use to you, it is true, but at least he will do no damage that way. But if
you say to him: "Now come along, don't idle away your time: get up and do
something," then immediately the trouble begins. He knocks the chair over as
he gets up, stumbles over a footstool a few paces further on, then smashes
some precious dish as soon as he handles it. If you make no demands upon
him his clumsiness is never noticed, but as soon as you ask him to do
anything his awkwardness is apparent at once. The demands were all right,
but the man was all wrong. He was as clumsy a man when he was sitting still
as when he was working, but it was your demands that made manifest the
clumsiness which, whether he was active or inactive, was all the time in his
make-up.
We are all sinners by nature. If God asks nothing of us, all seems to go
well, but as soon as he demands something of us, the occasion is provided
for a grand display of our sinfulness. The Law makes our weakness manifest.
While you let me sit still I appear to be all right, but when you ask me to do
anything I am sure to spoil it, and if you trust me with a second thing I will as
surely spoil that also. When a holy law is applied to a sinful man, then it is
that his sinfulness comes out in full display.
God knows who I am; he knows that from head to foot I am full of sin; he
knows that I am weak ness incarnate; that I can do nothing. The trouble is
that I do not know it. I admit that all men are sinners, and that therefore I am
a sinner; but I imagine that I am not such a hopeless sinner as some. God
must bring us all to the place where we see that we are utterly weak and
helpless. While we say so, we do not wholly believe it, and God has to do
something to convince us of the fact. Had it not been for the Law, we should
never have known how weak we are. Paul had reached that point. He makes
this clear when he says in Romans 7:7: "I had not known sin, except through
the law: for I had not known coveting, except the law had said, thou shalt not
covet." Whatever might be his experience with the rest of the Law, it was the
tenth commandment, which literally translated is, "Thou shalt not desire ...,"
that found him out. There his total incapacity stared him in the face!
The more we try to keep the Law the more our weakness is manifest and
the deeper we get into Romans 7, until it is clearly demonstrated to us that we
are hopelessly weak. God knew it all along, but we did not, and so God had
to bring us through painful experiences to a recognition of the fact. We need
to have our weakness proved to ourselves beyond dispute. That is why God
gave us the Law.
So we can say, reverently, that God never gave us the Law to keep: he
gave us the Law to break! He well knew that we could not keep it. We are so
bad that he asks no favor and makes no demands. Never has any man
succeeded in making himself acceptable to God by means of the Law.
Nowhere in the New Testament are men of faith told that they are to keep the
Law; but it does say that the Law was given so that there should be
transgression. "The law came in ... that the trespass might abound" (Rom.
5:20). The Law was given to make us law-breakers! No doubt I am a sinner
in Adam; "Howbeit, I had not known sin, except through the law:... for apart
from the law sin is dead ... but when the commandment came, sin revived,
and I died" (Rom. 7:7-9). The Law is that which exposes our true nature.
Alas, we are so conceited, and think ourselves so strong, that God has to give
us something to test us and prove how weak we are. At last we see it, and
confess, "I am a sinner through and through, and of myself I can do nothing
whatever to please a holy God."
No, the law was not given in the expectation that we would keep it. It
was given in the full knowledge that we would break it; and when we have
broken it so completely as to be convinced of our utter need, then the Law
has served its purpose. It has been our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ,
that in us he may himself fulfill it (Gal. 3:24).
CHRIST THE END OF THE LAW
In Romans 6 we saw how God delivered us from sin: in Romans 7 we
see how he delivers us from the Law. Chapter 6 shows us the way of
deliverance from sin in the picture of a master and his slave; chapter 7 shows
us the way of deliverance from the Law in the picture of two husbands and a
wife. The relation between sin and the sinner is that of master to slave; the
relation between the Law and the sinner is that of husband to wife.
Notice first that in the picture by which, in Romans 7:1-4, Paul illustrates
our deliverance from the Law, there is only one woman, while there are two
husbands. The woman is in a very difficult position, for she can only be wife
of one of the two, and unfortunately she is married to the less desirable one.
Let us make no mistake, the man to whom she is married is a good man; but
the trouble lies here, that the husband and wife are totally unsuited to one
another. He is a most particular man, accurate to a degree; she on the other
hand is decidedly easy-going. With him all is definite and precise; with her all
is casual and haphazard. He wants everything just so, while she takes things
as they come. How could there be happiness in such a home?
And then that husband is so exacting! He is always making demands
upon her. And yet one cannot find fault with him, for as a husband he has a
right to expect something of his wife; and besides, all his demands are
perfectly legitimate. There is nothing wrong with the man and nothing wrong
with his demands; the trouble is that he has the wrong kind of wife to carry
them out. The two cannot get on at all; theirs are utterly incompatible natures.
Thus the poor woman is in great distress. She is fully aware that she often
makes mistakes, but living with such a husband it seems as though
everything she says and does is wrong! What hope is there for her? If only
she were married to that other Man all would be well. He is no less exacting
than her husband, but he also helps much. She would fain marry him, but her
husband is still alive. What can she do? She is "bound by law to the
husband" and unless he dies she cannot legitimately marry that other Man.
This picture is not drawn by me but by the apostle Paul. The first
husband is the Law; the second husband is Christ; and you are the woman.
The law requires much, but offers no help in the carrying out of its
requirements. The Lord Jesus requires just as much, yea more (Matt. 5:2148), but what he requires from us he himself carries out in us. The law makes
demands and leaves us helpless to fulfill them; Christ makes demands, but he
himself fulfills in us the very demands he makes. Little wonder that the
woman desires to be freed from the first husband that she may marry that
other Man! But her only hope of release is through the death of her first
husband, and he holds on to life most tenaciously. Indeed there is not the
least prospect of his passing away. "Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot
or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be
accomplished" (Matt. 5:18).
The Law is going to continue for all eternity. If the Law will never pass
away, then how can I ever be united to Christ? How can I marry a second
husband if my first husband resolutely refuses to die? There is one way out.
If he will not die, I can die, and if I die the marriage relationship is dissolved.
And that is exactly God's way of deliverance from the Law. The most
important point to note in this section of Romans 7 is the transition from verse
3 to verse 4. Verses 1 to 3 show that the husband should die, but in verse 4
we see that in fact it is the woman who dies. The Law does not pass away,
but I pass away, and by death I am freed from the Law. Let us realize clearly
that the Law can never pass away. God's righteous demands remain for
ever, and if I live I must meet those demands; but if I die the Law has lost its
claim upon me. It cannot follow me beyond the grave.
Thus exactly the same principle operates in our deliverance from the Law
as in our deliverance from sin. When I have died my old master, Sin, still
continues to live, but his power over his slave extends as far as the grave and
no further. He could ask me to do a hundred and one things when I was
alive, but when I am dead he calls on me in vain. I am for ever freed from his
tyranny. So it is with regard to the Law. While the woman lives she is bound
to her husband, but with her death the marriage bond is dissolved and she is
"discharged from the law of her husband." The Law may still make demands,
but for me its power to enforce them is ended.
Now the vital question arises: "How do I die?" And the preciousness of
our Lord's work comes in just here: "Ye also were made dead to the law
through the body of Christ" (Rom. 7:4). When Christ died his body was
broken, and since God placed me in him (1 Cor. 1:30), I have been broken
too. When he was crucified, I was crucified with him. In the sight of God, his
death included mine. On the hill of Calvary it was for ever done.
"Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law." That
woman's husband may be very well and strong, but if she dies, he may make
as many demands upon her as he likes; it will not affect her in the slightest.
Death has released her from all his claims. The all-inclusive death of Jesus
Christ has for ever freed us from the Law.
But that is not all. Remember, our Lord did not remain in the grave. On
the third day he rose again; and since we are still in him we too are risen.
The body of the Lord Jesus speaks not only of his death but of his
resurrection, for his resurrection was a bodily resurrection. Thus "through the
body of Christ" we are not only "dead to the law" but alive unto God.
God's purpose in uniting us to Christ was not merely negative; it was
gloriously positive— "that ye should be joined to another" (Rom. 7:4). Death
has dissolved the old marriage relationship, so that the woman, driven to
despair by the constant demands of her former husband, who never lifted a
little finger to help her carry them out, is now set free to marry the other Man,
who with every demand he makes becomes in her the power for its fulfillment.
And what is the issue of this new union? "That we might bring forth fruit
unto God" (Rom. 7:4). By the body of Christ, that foolish, sinful woman has
died, but being united to him in death she is united to him also in resurrection,
and in power of that resurrection, hers becomes a fruitful life. The life of the
risen Lord within her empowers her for all the claims God's holiness makes
upon her. The Law of God is not annulled; it is perfectly fulfilled, for the risen
Lord Jesus now lives out his life in her, and his life is always well-pleasing to
the Father.
What is the most obvious thing that happens when a woman marries?
She changes her name. She no longer bears her own name but that of her
husband; and she shares not his name only but his possessions also.
Everything that belongs to him belongs now equally to her. All of a sudden
she is amazingly enriched. And so it is when we are joined to Christ. All that
is his becomes ours, and with his infinite resources at our disposal, we need
never again fear that we shall be unable to meet all his demands.
OUR END IS GOD'S BEGINNING
Now that we have settled the doctrinal side of the question we must
come down to practical issues, staying a little longer with the negative aspect
and keeping the positive for our next chapter. What does it mean in everyday
life to be delivered from the Law? At risk of a little overstatement I reply: It
means that from henceforth I am going to do nothing whatever for God; I am
never again going to try to please him. "What a doctrine!" you exclaim.
"What awful heresy! You cannot possibly mean that!"
But remember, if I try to please God "in the flesh," then immediately I
place myself under the Law. I broke the Law; the Law pronounced the death
sentence; the sentence was executed, and now by death I—the carnal "I"
(Rom. 7:14)—have been set free from all its claims. There is still a Law of
God, and now there is in fact a "new commandment" that is infinitely more
exacting than the old, but, praise God, its demands are being met, for it is
Christ who now fulfills them; it is Christ who works in me what is well-pleasing
to God. "I came ... to fulfill (the law)" were his words (Matt. 5:17). Thus it is
that Paul, from the ground of resurrection, can say: "Work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to
will and to work, for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12, 13).
It is God which worketh in you. Deliverance from law does not mean that
we are free from doing the will of God. It certainly does not mean that we are
going to be lawless. Very much the reverse! What it does mean however is
that we are free from doing that will as of ourselves. Being fully persuaded
that we cannot do it, we cease trying to please God from the ground of the old
man. Having at last reached the point of utter despair in ourselves so that we
cease even to try, we put our trust in the Lord to manifest his resurrection life
in us.
Let me illustrate by what I have seen in my own country. In China, most
bearers can carry a load of salt weighing 120 kilos, a few even as much as
250 kilos. Now along comes a man who can carry only 120 kilos, and here is
a load of 250 kilos. He knows perfectly well he cannot carry it, and if he is
wise he will say: "I won't touch it!" But the temptation to try is ingrained in
human nature, so although he cannot possibly carry it, nevertheless he has a
go. As a youngster I used to amuse myself watching ten or twenty of these
fellows come along and try, though every one of them knew he could not
possibly manage it. In the end he must give up and make way for the man
who could.
The sooner we too give up trying the better, for if we monopolize the task,
there is left no room for the Holy Spirit. But if we say: “I‟ll not do it; I'll trust
thee to do it for me," then we shall find that a Power stronger than ourselves
is carrying us through.
In 1923 I met a famous Canadian evangelist. I had said in an address
something along the above lines, and as we walked back to his home
afterwards he remarked: "The note of Romans 7 is seldom sounded
nowadays; it is good to hear it again. The day I was delivered from the Law
was a day of heaven on earth. After being a Christian for years I was still
trying my best to please God, but the more I tried the more I failed. I regarded
God as the greatest Demander in the universe, but I found myself impotent to
fulfill the least of his demands. Suddenly one day, as I read Romans 7, light
dawned and I saw that I had not only been delivered from sin but from the
Law as well. In my amazement I jumped up and said: 'Lord, are you really
making no demands on me? Then I need do nothing more for You!' "
God's requirements have not altered, but we are not the ones to meet
them. Praise God, he is the Lawgiver on the Throne, and he is the Lawkeeper in my heart. He who gave the Law, himself keeps it. He makes the
demands, but he also meets them. My friend could well jump up and shout
when he found he had nothing to do, and all who make a like discovery can
do the same. As long as we are trying to do anything, he can do nothing. It is
because of our trying that we fail and fail and fail. God wants to demonstrate
to us that we can do nothing at all, and until that is fully recognized our
despair and disillusion will never cease.
A brother who was trying to struggle into victory remarked to me one day,
"I do not know why I am so weak." "The trouble with you," I said, "is that you
are weak enough not to do the will of God, but you are not weak enough to
keep out of things altogether. You are still not weak enough. When you are
reduced to utter weakness and are persuaded that you can do nothing
whatever, then God will do everything." We all need to come to the point
where we say: "Lord, I am unable to do anything for thee, but I trust thee to do
everything in me."
I was once staying in a place in China with some twenty other brothers.
There was inadequate provision for bathing in the home where we stayed, so
we went for a daily plunge in the river, On one occasion a brother got a
cramp in his leg, and I suddenly saw he was sinking fast, so I motioned to
another brother, who was an expert swimmer, to hasten to his rescue. But to
my astonishment he made no move. Growing desperate I cried out: "Don't
you see the man is drowning?" and the other brothers, about as agitated as I
was, shouted vigorously too. But our good swimmer still did not move. Calm
and collected, he remained just where he was, apparently postponing the
unwelcome task. Meantime the voice of the poor drowning brother grew
fainter and his efforts feebler. In my heart I said: "I hate that man! Think of
his letting a brother drown before his very eyes and not going to the rescue!"
But when the man was actually sinking, with a few swift strokes the
swimmer was at his side, and both were soon safely ashore. Nevertheless,
when I got an opportunity, I aired my views. "I have never seen any Christian
who loved his life quite as much as you do," I said. "Think of the distress you
would have saved that brother if you had considered yourself a little less and
him a little more." But the swimmer, I soon discovered, knew his business
better than I did. "Had I gone earlier," he said, "he would have clutched me
so fast that both of us would have gone under. A drowning man cannot be
saved until he is utterly exhausted and ceases to make the slightest effort to
save himself."
Do you see the point? When we give up the case, then God will take it
up. He is waiting until we are at an end of our resources and can do nothing
more for ourselves. God has condemned all that is of the old creation and
consigned it to the Cross. The flesh profiteth nothing! God has declared it to
be fit only for death. If we truly believe that, then we shall confirm God's
verdict by abandoning all fleshly efforts to please him. For our every attempt
to do his will is a denial of his declaration in the Cross that we are utterly
powerless to do so. It is a misunderstanding on the one hand of God's
demands and on the other hand of the source of supply.
We see the Law, and we think that we must meet its claims, but we need
to remember that, though the Law in itself is all right, it will be all wrong if it is
applied to the wrong person. The "wretched man" of Romans 7 tried to meet
the claims of God's law himself, and that was the cause of his trouble. The
repeated use of the little word "I" in this chapter gives the clue to the failure.
"The good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I
practice" (Rom. 7:19). There was a fundamental misconception in this man's
mind. He thought God was asking him to keep the Law, so of course he was
trying to do so, whereas God was requiring no such thing of him. What was
the result? Far from doing what pleased God, he found himself doing what
displeased him. In his very efforts to do the will of God, he did exactly the
opposite of what he knew to be his will.
I THANK GOD
Romans 6 deals with "the body of sin,” Romans 7 with "the body of this
death" (6:6; 7:24). In chapter 6 the whole question before us is sin; in chapter
7 the whole question before us is death. What is the difference between the
body of sin and the body of death? In regard to sin (that is, to whatever
displeases God) I have a body of sin—a body, that is to say, which is actively
engaged in sin. But in regard to the Law of God (that is, to that which
expresses the will of God) I have a body of death. My activity in regard to sin
makes my body a body of sin; my failure in regard to God's will makes my
body a body of death. In regard to all that is wicked, worldly and Satanic I
am, in my nature, wholly positive; but in regard to all that pertains to holiness
and heaven and God I am wholly negative.
Have you discovered the truth of that in your life? It is no good merely to
discover it in Romans 6 and 7. Have you discovered that you carry the
encumbrance of a lifeless body in regard to God's will? You have no difficulty
in speaking about worldly matters, but when you try to speak for the Lord you
are tongue-tied; when you try to pray you feel sleepy; when you try to do
something for the Lord you feel unwell. You can do anything but that which
relates to God's will. There is something in this body that does not harmonize
with the will of God.
What does death mean? We may illustrate from a well-known verse in
the first letter to the Corinthians: "For this cause many among you are weak
and sickly, and not a few sleep" (1 Cor. 11:30). Death is weakness produced
to its extremity—weakness, sickness, death. Death means utter weakness; it
means you are weak to such a point that you can become no weaker. That I
have a body of death in relation to God's will means that I am so weak when it
comes to serving God, so utterly weak, that I am reduced to a point of dire
helplessness. "O wretched man that I am!" cried Paul, "who shall deliver me
out of the body of this death?" and it is good when anyone cries out as he did.
There is nothing more musical in the ears of the Lord. This cry is the most
spiritual and the most scriptural cry a man can utter. He only utters it when he
knows he can do nothing, and gives up making any further resolutions. Up to
this point, every time he failed, he made a new resolution and doubled and
redoubled his will-power. At last he discovers there is no use in his making
up his mind any more, and he cries out in desperation: "O wretched man that I
am!" Like someone who awakes suddenly to find himself in a burning
building, his cry is now for help, for he has come to the point where he
despairs of himself.
Have you despaired of yourself, or do you hope that if you read and pray
more you will be a better Christian? Bible-reading and prayer are not wrong,
and God forbid that we should suggest that they are, but it is wrong to trust
even in them for victory. Our help is in him who is the object of that reading
and prayer. Our trust must be in Christ alone. Happily, the "wretched man"
does not merely deplore his wretchedness; he asks a fine question, namely:
"Who shall deliver me?" “Who?" Hitherto he has looked for some thing; now
his hope is in a Person. Hitherto he has looked within for a solution to his
problem; now he looks beyond himself for a Savior. He no longer puts forth
self-effort; all his expectation is now in another.
How did we obtain forgiveness of sins? Was it by reading, praying,
almsgiving, and so on? No, we looked to the Cross, believing in what the
Lord Jesus had done; and deliverance from sin becomes ours on exactly the
same principle, nor is it otherwise with the question of pleasing God. In the
matter of forgiveness we look to Christ on the Cross; in the matter of
deliverance from sin and of doing the will of God we look to Christ in our
hearts. For the one we depend on what he has done; for the other we
depend on what he will do in us; but in regard to both, our dependence is on
him alone. From start to finish, he is the One who does it all.
At the time when the Epistle to the Romans was written a murderer was
punished in a peculiar and terrible manner. The dead body of the one
murdered was tied to the living body of the murderer, head to head, hand to
hand, foot to foot, and the living one was bound to the dead one till death.
The murderer could go where he pleased, but wherever he went he had to
drag the corpse of that murdered man with him. Could punishment be more
appalling? Yet this is the illustration Paul now uses. It is as though he were
bound to a dead body—his own "body of death"—and unable to get free.
Wherever he goes he is hampered by this terrible burden. At last he can bear
it no longer and dries: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me ...?"
And then, in a flash of illumination, his cry of despair changes to a song of
praise. He has found the answer to his question. "I thank God through Jesus
Christ our Lord" (Rom. 7:25).
We know that justification is ours through the Lord Jesus and requires no
work on our part, but we think sanctification is dependent on our own efforts.
We know we can receive forgiveness only by entire reliance on the Lord; yet
we believe we can obtain deliverance by doing something ourselves. We fear
that if we do nothing, nothing will happen. After salvation the old habit of
"doing" reasserts itself and we begin our old self-efforts again. Then God's
word comes afresh to us: "It is finished" (John 19:30). He has done
everything on the Cross for our forgiveness and he will do everything in us for
our deliverance. In both cases he is the doer. "It is God that worketh in you."
The first words of the delivered man are very precious—"I thank God." If
someone gives you a cup of water you thank the person who gave it, not
someone else. Why did Paul say "Thank God?" Because God was the One
who did everything. Had it been Paul who did it, he would have said, "Thank
Paul." But he saw that Paul was a "wretched man" and that God alone could
meet his need; so he said, "Thank God." God wants to do all the work, for he
must have all the glory. If we did some of it, then we could claim some of the
glory ourselves. But God must have it all. He does all the work from
beginning to end.
What we have said in this chapter might seem negative and unpractical if
we were to stop at this point, as though the Christian life were a matter of
sitting still and waiting for something to happen. Of course it is very far from
being so. All who truly live it know it to be a matter of very positive and active
faith in Christ and in an altogether new principle of life—the law of the Spirit of
life. We are now going to look at the efforts in us of this new life principle.
Chapter Nine Comments and Questions
The Meaning and Value of Romans Seven
As Nee remarks on Romans 7, the chapter in itself seems negative and
unpractical, and yet it corresponds so accurately to the common experience
of many Christians that it must be more important than might have been
thought.
We may have imagined that bondage to the law was not really our
problem. We have appreciated that for Paul and his Jewish contemporaries,
the Law represented the complete opposite of the Gospel. We noted in
Galatians how the truth and power of the Gospel can be nullified by a
reversion to 'works of the law', but may have imagined that this all related to
Jewish practices and was therefore of little importance to us today.
We now find that this is far from being so, for Nee tells us that this is a
major consideration in the spiritual growth of all believers, and that 'the Law' is
a much bigger issue than we had realized, being the inclusive term for all the
requirements and standards of divine holiness. It is, in fact, the will of God.
After reaching my present state of spiritual experience, I want to do God's will.
Of course I do. Then why do I so often fail? Paul makes no secret of the fact
that this was his problem before he discovered the remedy, and he implies
that something of this kind must happen to every man before he can enjoy the
fullness described in Romans 8.
Bible Reading: Romans 7:1-25
Chapter Sub-headings
The Flesh and Man's Breakdown
What the Law Teaches
Christ the End of the Law
Our End is God's Beginning
I Thank God!
Questions
1. Do you think that the section of Romans 7 from verse 7 to 25 could
ever have described the experience of Saul before his conversion? Or
of any other unconverted man?
2. Find the number of times in which ‘I’, 'me', or 'my’ appear in this
section (7-25). Can you indicate what this suggests?
3. Describe the difference between 'law' and 'grace’.
4. 'We need to have our weaknesses proved beyond dispute.' Does this
kind of proof come to a lax or self-centered Christian?
5. Did God ever expect men to fulfill His Law?
6. Does the Law of the Lord Jesus demand less of us than the Law of
Moses?
7. 'If the Law will never pass away, then how can I ever be united to
Christ?' Answer this is in your own words.
8. What does Nee say about the value of coming to despair of ever
pleasing God?
9. This story of the drowning man is excellent to illustrate the need for
ceasing from self-effort, but does it suggest a false analogy as to what it
means to be saved?
10. The man who cried: 'Who will deliver me...?' afterwards gives thanks
but does not say how or when he was delivered. Can you suggest why
this is so?
Chapter 10
The Path of Progress: Walking in the Spirit
Coming now to Romans 8 we may first summarize the argument of our
second section of the letter from chapter 5:12 to chapter 8:39 in two phrases,
each containing a contrast and each marking an aspect of Christian
experience. They are:
Romans 5:12 to 6:23: "In Adam" and "in Christ."
Romans 7:1 to 8:39: "In the flesh" and "in the spirit."
We need to understand the relationship of these four things. The former
two are "objective" and set forth our position, firstly as we were by nature and
secondly, as we now are by faith in the redemptive work of Christ. The latter
two are "subjective" and relate to our walk as a matter of practical experience.
Scripture makes it clear that the first two give us only a part of the picture and
that the second two are required to complete it. We think it enough to be "in
Christ," but we learn now that we must also walk "in the spirit" (Rom. 8:9).
The frequent occurrence of "the Spirit" in the early part of Romans 8 serves to
emphasize this further important lesson of the Christian life.
THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT
The flesh is linked with Adam; the Spirit with Christ. Leaving aside now
as settled the question of whether we are in Adam or in Christ, the time has
come to ask ourselves: Am I living in the flesh or in the Spirit?
To live in the flesh is to do something "out from" (The author has in mind
the Greek preposition ek, the sense of which is not easily conveyed by any
single English word.—Ed.) myself as in Adam. It is to derive strength from the
old natural source of life that I inherited from him, so that I enjoy in experience
all Adam's very complete provision for sinning which all of us have found so
effective. Now the same is true of what is in Christ. To enjoy in experience
what is true of me as in him, I must learn what it is to walk in the Spirit. It is a
historic fact that in Christ my old man was crucified, and it is a present fact
that I am blessed "with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in
Christ" (Eph. 1:3); but if I do not live in the Spirit, then my life may be quite a
contradiction of the fact that I am in Christ, for what is true of me in him is not
expressed in me. I may recognize that I am in Christ, but I may also have to
face the fact that, for example, my old temper is very much in evidence.
What is the trouble? It is that I am holding the truth merely objectively,
whereas what is true objectively must be made true subjectively; and that is
brought about as I live in the Spirit.
Not only am I in Christ, but Christ is in me. And just as, physically, a man
cannot live and work in water but only in air, so, spiritually, Christ dwells and
manifests himself not in terms of "flesh" but of "spirit." Therefore, if I live "after
the flesh," I find that what is mine in Christ is, so to say, held in suspense in
me. Though in fact I am in Christ, yet if I live in the flesh— that is, in my own
strength and under my own direction—then in experience I find to my dismay
that it is what is in Adam that manifests itself in me. If I would know in
experience all that is in Christ, then I must learn to live in the Spirit.
Living in the Spirit means that I trust the Holy Spirit to do in me what I
cannot do myself. This life is completely different from the life I would
naturally live of myself. Each time I am faced with a new demand from the
Lord, I look to him to do in me what he requires of me. It is not a case of
trying but of trusting; not of struggling but of resting in him. If I have a hasty
temper, impure thoughts, a quick tongue or a critical spirit, I shall not set out
with a determined effort to change myself, but instead, reckoning myself dead
in Christ to these things, I shall look to the Spirit of God to produce in me the
needed purity of humility or meekness, confident that he will do so. This is
what it means to "stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will
work for you" (Exod. 14:13).
Some of you have no doubt had an experience something like the
following. You have been asked to go and see a friend, and you knew the
friend was not very friendly, but you trusted the Lord to see you through. You
told him before you set out that in yourself you could not but fail, and you
asked him for all that was needed. Then, to your surprise, you did not feel at
all irritated, though your friend was far from gracious. On your return you
thought over the experience and marveled that you had kept so calm, and you
wondered if you would be just as calm next time. You were amazed at
yourself and sought an explanation. This is the explanation: the Holy Spirit
carried you through.
Unfortunately we only have this kind of experience once in a while, but it
should be ours constantly. When the Holy Spirit takes things in hand, there is
no need for strain on our part. It is not a case of clenching our teeth and
taking a grip on ourselves, and thinking that thus we have controlled
ourselves beautifully and have had a glorious victory. No, where there is real
victory, it is not fleshly effort that carries us through, but the Lord.
The object of temptation is always to get us to do something. During the
first three months of the Japanese war in China we lost a great many tanks,
and so were unable to deal with the Japanese armor, until the following
scheme was devised. A single shot would be fired at a Japanese tank by one
of our snipers in ambush. After a considerable lapse of time the first shot
would be followed by a second; then, after a further silence, by another shot;
until the tank driver, eager to locate the source of the disturbance, would pop
his head out to look around. The next shot, carefully aimed, would put an end
to him.
As long as he remained under cover he was perfectly safe. The whole
scheme was devised to bring him out into the open. In just the same way,
Satan's temptations are not designed primarily to make us do something
particularly sinful, but merely to cause us to act in our energy; and as soon as
we step out of our hiding-place to do something on that basis, he has gained
the victory over us. But if we do not move, if we do not come out of the cover
of Christ into the realm of the flesh, then he cannot get us.
The divine way of victory does not therefore permit of our doing anything
at all—anything, that is to say, outside of Christ. This is because as soon as
we move we run into danger, for our natural inclinations carry us in the wrong
direction. Where, then, are we to look for help? Turn now to Galatians 5:17:
"The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." This
tells us where the real tussle takes place. The fight with the flesh is not ours
but the Holy Spirit's, "for these are contrary the one to the other," and it is he,
not we, who meets and deals with it. What is the result? "That ye may not do
the things that ye would."
I think we have often failed to grasp the full import of that last clause. Let
us consider it for a moment. What "would we do" naturally? We would move
off on some course of action dictated by our own instincts and apart from the
will of God. The effect, therefore, of our refusal to come out of cover and act
out from ourselves is that the Holy Spirit is free to do his work—free, that is, to
meet and deal with the flesh in us, so that in fact we do not do what we
naturally would do. Instead of going off on a plan and course of our own, we
find our satisfaction in his perfect plan. Hence the command is a positive one:
"Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16). If
we live in the Spirit, if we walk by faith in the risen Christ, we can truly "stand
aside" while the Spirit gains new victories over the flesh every day. He has
been given to us to take charge of this business. Our victory lies in hiding in
Christ, and in counting in simple trust upon his Holy Spirit within us to
overcome our fleshly lusts with his own new desires. The Cross has been
given to procure salvation for us; the Spirit has been given to produce
salvation in us. Christ risen and ascended is the basis of our salvation; Christ
in our hearts by the Spirit is its power.
CHRIST OUR LIFE
"I thank God through Jesus Christ!" That exclamation of Paul's is
fundamentally the same in its import as his other words in Galatians 2:20
which we have taken as the key to our study: "I live; and yet no longer I, but
Christ." We saw how prominent is the word "I" throughout Romans 7,
culminating in the agonized cry: "O wretched man that I am!" Then follows
the shout of deliverance: "Thank God ... Jesus Christ!" and it is clear that the
discovery Paul has made is this, that the life we live is the life of Christ alone.
We think of the Christian life as a "changed life" but it is not that. What God
offers us is an "exchanged life," a "substituted life," and Christ is our
Substitute within. "I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me." This life
is not something which we ourselves have to produce. It is Christ's own life
reproduced in us.
How many Christians believe in "reproduction" in this sense, as
something more than regeneration? Regeneration means that the life of
Christ is planted in us by the Holy Spirit at our new birth. "Reproduction"
goes further: it means that that new life grows and becomes manifest
progressively in us, until the very likeness of Christ begins to be reproduced in
our lives. That is what Paul means when he speaks of his travail for the
Galatians "until Christ be formed in you" (Gal. 4:19).
Let me illustrate with another story. I once stayed in America in the home
of a saved couple who, soon after my arrival, requested me to pray for them.
I inquired the cause of their trouble. "Oh, Mr. Nee, we have been in a bad
way lately," they confessed. "We are so easily irritated by the children, and
during the past few weeks we have both lost our tempers several times a day.
We are really dishonoring the Lord. Will you ask him to give us patience?"
"That is the one thing I cannot do," I said. "What do you mean?" they asked.
"I mean that one thing is certain," I answered, "and that is that God is not
going to answer your prayer." At that they said in amazement, "Do you mean
to tell us we have gone so far that God is not willing to hear us when we ask
him to make us patient?" "No, I do not mean quite that, but I would like to ask
you if you have ever prayed in this respect. You have. But did God answer?
No! Do you know why? Because you have no need of patience." Then the
wife's eyes flashed. "What are you saying?" she burst out. "We do not need
patience, and yet we get irritated the whole day long! It doesn't make sense.
What do you mean?" Quietly I replied, "It is not patience you have need of. It
is Christ."
And this is the truth. God will not give me humility or patience or holiness
or love as separate gifts of his grace. He is not a retailer dispensing grace to
us in packets, measuring out some patience to the impatient, some love to the
unloving, some meekness to the proud, in quantities that we take and work on
as a kind of capital. He has given only one gift to meet all our need: his Son
Christ Jesus. As I look to him to live out his life in me, he will be humble and
patient and loving and everything else I need—in my stead. Remember the
word in the first Epistle of John: "God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is
in his Son. He that hath the Son hath the life; and he that hath not the Son of
God hath not the life" (1 John 5:11, 12). The life of God is not given us as a
separate item; the life of God is given us in the Son. It is "eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23). Our relationship to the Son is our relationship to
the life.
It is a blessed thing to discover the difference between Christian graces
and Christ: to know the difference between meekness and Christ, between
patience and Christ, between love and Christ. Remember again what is said
in 1 Corinthians 1:30: "Christ Jesus ... was made unto us wisdom from God,
and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption."
The common
conception of sanctification is that every item of the life should be holy; but
that is not holiness, it is the fruit of holiness. Holiness is Christ. It is the Lord
Jesus being made over to us to be that. So you can put in anything there:
love, humility, power, self-control. Today there is a call for patience: he is our
patience! Tomorrow the call may be for purity: he is our purity! He is the
answer to every need. That is why Paul speaks of "the fruit of the Spirit" as
one (Gal. 5:22) and not of "fruits" as separate items. God has given us his
Holy Spirit, and when love is needed the fruit of the Spirit is love; when joy is
needed the fruit of the Spirit is joy. It is always true. It does not matter what
your personal deficiency, or whether it be a hundred and one different things,
God has always one sufficient answer, his Son Jesus Christ, and he is the
answer to every human need.
How can we know more of Christ in this way? Only by way of an
increasing awareness of need. Some are afraid to discover deficiency in
themselves, and so they never grow. Growth in grace is the only sense in
which we can grow, and grace, we have said, is God doing something for us.
We all have the same Christ dwelling within, but revelation of some new need
will lead us spontaneously to trust him to live out his life in us in that
particular. Greater capacity means greater enjoyment of God's supply.
Another letting go, a fresh trusting in Christ, and another stretch of land is
conquered. "Christ my life" is the secret of enlargement.
We have spoken of trying and trusting, and the difference between the
two. Believe me, it is the difference between heaven and hell. It is not
something just to be talked over as a satisfying thought; it is stark reality.
"Lord, I cannot do it, therefore I will no longer try to do it." This is the point
most of us fall short of. "Lord, I cannot; therefore I will take my hands off;
from now on I trust thee for that." We refuse to act; we depend on him to do
so, and then we enter fully and joyfully into the action he initiates. It is not
passivity; it is a most active life, trusting the Lord like that; drawing life from
him, taking him to be our very life, letting him live his life in us as we go forth
in his Name.
THE LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE
"There is therefore now no condemnation them that are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:1-2,
A.V.).
It is in chapter 8 that Paul presents to us in detail the positive side of life
in the Spirit. "There is therefore now no condemnation," he begins, and this
statement may at first seem out of place here. Surely condemnation was met
by the Blood, through which we found peace with God and salvation from
wrath (Rom. 5:1, 9). But there are two kinds of condemnation, namely, that
before God and that before myself (just as earlier we saw there are two kinds
of peace) and the second may at times seem to us even more awful than the
first. When I see that the Blood of Christ has satisfied God, then I know my
sins are forgiven, and there is for me no more condemnation before God. Yet
I may still be knowing defeat, and the sense of inward condemnation on this
account may be very real, as Romans 7 shows. But if I have learned to live
by Christ as my life, then I have discovered the secret of victory, and, praise
God, in the inward sense also, "there is therefore now no condemnation."
''The mind of the spirit is life and peace" (Rom. 8:6), and this becomes my
experience as I learn to walk in the Spirit. With peace in my heart I have no
time to feel condemned, but only to praise him who leads me on from one
fresh victory to another.
But what lay behind my sense of condemnation? Was it not the
experience of defeat and the sense of helplessness to do anything about it?
Before I saw that Christ is my life, I labored under a constant sense of
handicap. Limitation dogged my steps; I felt disabled at every turn; I was
always crying out, "I cannot do this! I cannot do that!" Try as I would, I had to
acknowledge that I "cannot please God" (Rom. 8:8).
But there is no "I
cannot" in Christ. Now it is: "I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me"
(Phil. 4:13).
How can Paul be so daring? On what ground does he declare that he is
now free from limitation and "can do all things"? Here is his answer: "For the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of
death" (Rom. 8:2). Why is there no more condemnation? "For ..." says Paul.
There is a reason for it; there is something definite to account for it. And the
reason is that a law called "the law of the Spirit of life" has proved stronger
than another law called "the law of sin and of death." What are these laws?
How do they operate? And what is the difference between sin and the law of
sin, and between death and the law of death?
First let us ask ourselves, What is a law? Strictly speaking, a law is a
generalization examined until it is proved that there is no exception. We
might define it more simply as something which happens over and over again.
Each time the thing happens it happens in the same way. We can illustrate
this both from statutory and from natural law. For example, in Britain, if I drive
a car on the right hand side of the road, the traffic police will stop me. Why?
Because it is against the law of the land. If you do it you will be stopped too.
Why? For the same reason that I would be stopped: it is against the law, and
the law makes no exceptions. It is something which happens repeatedly and
unfailingly. Or again, we all know what is meant by gravity. If I drop my
handkerchief in London it falls to the ground. That is the effect of gravity. But
the same is true if I drop it in New York or Hong Kong. No matter where I let it
go, gravity operates, and it always produces the same results. Whenever the
same conditions prevail the same effects are seen. There is thus a "law" of
gravity.
Now what of the law of sin and death? If someone passes an unkind
remark about me, at once something goes wrong inside me. That is not law;
that is sin. But if, when different people pass unkind remarks, the same
"something" goes wrong inside, then I discern a law within—a law of sin. Like
the law of gravity, it is something constant. It always works the same way.
And so too with the law of death. Death, we have said, is weakness produced
to its limit. Weakness is "I cannot." Now if when I try to please God in this
particular matter I find I cannot, and if when I try to please him in that other
thing I again find I cannot, then I discern a law at work. There is not only sin
in me but a law of sin; there is not only death in me but a law of death.
Then again, not only is gravity a law in the sense that it is constant,
admitting of no exception, but, unlike the rule of the road, it is a "natural" law
and not the subject of discussion and decision but of discovery. The law is
there, and the handkerchief "naturally" drops of itself without any help from
me. And the "law" discovered by the man in Romans 7:23 is just like that. It
is a law of sin and of death, opposed to that which is good, and crippling the
man's will to do good. He "naturally" sins according to the "law of sin" in his
members. He wills to be different, but that law in him is relentless, and no
human will can resist it. So this brings me to the question: How can I be set
free from the law of sin and death? I need deliverance from sin, and still more
do I need deliverance from death, but most of all I need deliverance from the
law of sin and of death. How can I be delivered from the constant repetition of
weakness and failure? In order to answer this question, let us follow out our
two illustrations further.
One of our great burdens in China used to be the likin tax, a law which
none could escape, originating in the Ch'in Dynasty and operating right down
to our own day. It was an inland tax on the transit of goods, applied
throughout the empire and having numerous barriers for collection, and
officers enjoying very large powers. The result was that the charge on goods
passing through several provinces might become very heavy indeed. But a
few years ago a second law came into operation which set aside the likin law.
Can you imagine the feelings of relief in those who had suffered under the old
law? Now there was no need to think or hope or pray; the new law was
already there and had delivered us from the old law. No longer was there
need to think beforehand what one would say if one met a likin officer
tomorrow!
And as with the law of the land, so it is with natural law. How can the law
of gravity be annulled? With regard to my handkerchief that law is at work
clearly enough, pulling it down, but I have only to place my hand under the
handkerchief and it does not drop. Why? The law is still there. I do not deal
with the law of gravity; in fact I cannot deal with the law of gravity. Then why
does my handkerchief not fall to the ground? Because there is a power
keeping it from doing so. The law is there, but another law superior to it is
operating to overcome it, namely the law of life. Gravity can do its utmost, but
the handkerchief will not drop, because another law is working against the law
of gravity to maintain it there. We have all seen the tree which was once a
small seed fallen between the slabs of a paving, and which has grown until
heavy stone blocks have been lifted by the power of the life within it. That is
what we mean by the triumph of one law over another.
In just such a manner God delivers us from one law by introducing
another law. The law of sin and death is there all the time, but God has put
another law into operation—the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and
that law is strong enough to deliver us from the law of sin and death. It is, you
see, a law of life in Christ—the resurrection life that in him has met death in all
its forms and triumphed over it (Eph. 1:19, 20). The Lord Jesus dwells in our
hearts in the person of his Holy Spirit, and if, committing ourselves to him, we
let him have a clear way, we shall find his new law of life superseding that old
law. We shall learn what it is to be kept, not by our own insufficient strength,
but "by the power of God" (1 Peter 1:5).
THE MANIFESTATION OF THE LAW OF LIFE
Let us seek to make this practical. We touched earlier on the matter of
our will in relation to the things of God. Even older Christians do not realize
how great a part will-power plays in their lives. That was part of Paul's trouble
in Romans 7. His will was good, but all his actions contradicted it, and
however much he made up his mind and set himself to please God, it led him
only into worse darkness. "I would do good," but "I am carnal, sold under sin."
That is the point. Like a car without gasoline, that has to be pushed and that
comes to a standstill as soon as it is left alone, many Christians endeavor to
drive themselves by will-power, and then think the Christian life a most
exhausting and bitter one. Some even force themselves to do Christian
things because others do them, while admitting they have no meaning to
them. They force themselves to be what they are not, and it is worse than
trying to make water run uphill. For after all, the very highest point the will can
reach is that of willingness (Matt. 26:41).
If we have to exert so much effort in our Christian living, it simply says
that we are not really like that at all. We don't need to force ourselves to
speak our native language. In fact we only have to exert will-power in order to
do things we do not do naturally. We may do them for a time, but the law of
sin and death wins in the end. We may be able to say, "To will is present with
me, and I perform that which is good for two weeks," but eventually we shall
have to confess, "How to perform it I know not." No, what I already am I do
not long to be. If I "would" it is because I am not.
You ask, Why do men use will-power to try to please God? There may
be two reasons. They may of course never have experienced the new birth,
in which case they have no new life to draw upon; or they may have been
born again and the life be there, but they have not learned to trust in that life.
It is this lack of understanding that results in habitual failure and sinning,
bringing them to the place where they almost cease to believe in the
possibility of anything better.
But because we have not believed fully, that does not mean that the
feeble life we intermittently experience is all God has given us. Romans 6:23
states that "the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord," and
now in Romans 8:2 we read that "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus"
has come to our aid. So Romans 8:2 speaks not of a new gift but of the life
already referred to in Romans 6:23. In other words, it is a new revelation of
what we already have. I feel I cannot emphasize this too much. It is not
something fresh from God's hand, but a new unveiling of what he has already
given. It is a new discovery of a work already done in Christ, for the words
"made me free" are in the past tense. If I really see this and put my faith in
him, there is no absolute necessity for the experience of Romans 7—either
the unhappy struggle and failure or the fruitless display of will-power—to be
repeated in me.
If we will let go of our own wills and trust him, we shall not fall to the
ground and break, but we shall fall into a different law, the law of the Spirit of
life. For God has given us not only life but a law of life. And just as the law of
gravity is a natural law and not the result of human legislation, so the law of
life is a "natural" law, similar in principle to the law that keeps our heart
beating or that controls the movements of our eyelids. There is no need for
us to think about our eyes, or to decide that we must blink every so often to
keep them cleansed; and still less do we bring our will to bear upon our heartbeat. Indeed to do so might rather harm than help it. No, so long as it has life
it works spontaneously. Our wills only interfere with the law of life. I
discovered that fact once in the following way.
I used to suffer from sleeplessness. Once after several sleepless nights,
when I had prayed much about it and exhausted all my resources, I
confessed at length to God that the fault must lie with me and asked to be
shown where. I said to God: "I demand an explanation." His answer was:
"Believe in nature's laws." Sleep is as much a law as hunger is, and I realized
that though I had never thought of worrying whether I would get hungry or not,
I had been worrying about sleeping. I had been trying to help nature, and that
is the chief trouble with most sufferers from sleeplessness. But now I trusted
not only God but God's law of nature, and very soon slept well.
Should we not read the Bible? Of course we should or our spiritual life
will suffer. But that should not mean forcing ourselves to read. There is a
new law in us which gives us a hunger for God's Word. Then half an hour can
be more profitable than five hours of forced reading. And it is the same with
giving, with preaching, with testimony. Forced preaching is apt to result in
preaching a warm gospel with a cold heart, and we all know what men mean
by "cold charity."
If we will let ourselves live in the new law, we shall be less conscious of
the old. It is still there, but it is no longer governing and we are no longer in its
grip. That is why the Lord says in Matthew 6: "Behold the birds ... Consider
the lilies." If we could ask the birds whether they were not afraid of the law of
gravity, how would they reply? They would say: "We never heard the name of
Newton. We know nothing about his law. We fly because it is the law of our
life to fly." Not only is there in them a life with the power of flight, but that life
has a law which enables these living creatures, quite spontaneously and
consistently, to overcome the law of gravity. Yet gravity remains. If you get
up early one morning when the cold is intense and the snow thick on the
ground, and there is a dead sparrow in the courtyard, you are reminded at
once of the persistence of that law. But while birds live they overcome it, and
the life within them is what dominates their consciousness.
God has been truly gracious to us. He has given us this new law of the
Spirit, and for us to "fly" is no longer a question of our will but of his life. Have
you noticed what a trial it is to make an impatient Christian patient? To
require patience of him is enough to make him ill with depression. But God
has never told us to force ourselves to be what we are not naturally; to try, by
taking thought, to add to our spiritual stature. Worrying may possibly
decrease a man's height, but it certainly never added anything to it. "Be not
anxious," are his words. "Consider the lilies, ... they grow." He is directing
our attention to the new law of life in us. Oh, for a new appreciation of the life
that is ours!
What a precious discovery this is! It can make altogether new men of us,
for it operates in the smallest things as well as in the bigger ones. It checks
us when, for example, we put out a hand to look at a book in someone else's
room, reminding us that we have not asked permission and have no right to
do so. We cannot, the Holy Spirit tells us, encroach thus upon the rights of
others.
Once I was talking to a Christian friend and he turned to me and said:
"Do you know, I believe that if anyone is willing to live by the law of the Spirit
of life, such a man will become truly refined." "What do you mean?" I asked.
He replied: "That law has the power to make a man a perfect gentleman.
Some scornfully say: 'You can't blame those people for the way they act; they
are just country folk and have no educational advantages.' But the real
question is, Have they the life of the Lord within? For I tell you, that life can
say to them: 'Your voice is too loud,' or, 'That laughter was not right,' or, 'Your
motive in passing that remark was wrong.' In a thousand details the Spirit of
life can tell them how to act, so producing in them a true refinement. There is
no such inherent power in education." And yet my friend was himself an
educationist!
But it is true. Take, for example, talkativeness. Are you a person of too
many words? When you stay with people, do you say to yourself: "What shall
I do? I am a Christian; but if I am to glorify the name of the Lord, I simply
must not talk so much. So today let me be extra careful to hold myself in
check"? And for an hour or two you succeed—until on some pretext you lose
control and, before you know where you are, find yourself once again in
difficulty with your garrulous tongue. Yes, let us be fully assured that the will
is useless here. For me to exhort you to exercise your will in this matter
would be but to offer you the vain religion of the world, not the life in Christ
Jesus. For consider again: a talkative person remains just that, though he
keep silent all day, for there is a "natural" law of talkativeness governing him
(or her!), just as a peach tree is a peach tree whether or not it bears peaches.
But as Christians we discover a new law in us, the law of the Spirit of life,
which transcends all else and which has already delivered us from the "law" of
our talkativeness. If, believing the Lord's Word, we yield ourselves to that
new law, it will tell us when we should stop talking—or not start!—and it will
empower us to do so. On that basis you can go to your friend's house for two
or three hours, or stay for two or three days, and experience no difficulty. On
your return you will just thank God for his new law of life.
It is this spontaneous life that is the Christian life. It manifests itself in
love for the unlovely—for the brother whom on natural grounds we would not
like and certainly could not love. It works on the basis of what the Lord sees
of possibility in that brother. "Lord, you see he is lovable and you love him.
Love him, now, through me!" And it manifests itself in reality of life—in a true
genuineness of moral character. There is too much hypocrisy in the lives of
Christians, too much play-acting. Nothing takes away from the effectiveness
of Christian witness as does a pretense of something that is not really there,
for the man in the street unfailingly penetrates such a disguise in the end, and
finds us out for what we are. Yes, pretense gives way to reality when we trust
the law of life.
THE FOURTH STEP: "WALK ... AFTER THE SPIRIT"
"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,
God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for
sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled
in us, who walk not after the flesh, but the Spirit" (Rom. 8:3, 4).
Every careful reader of these two verses will see that there are two things
presented here. First, they are what the Lord Jesus has done for us, and
second, what the Holy Spirit will do in us. The flesh is "weak": consequently
the ordinance of the law cannot be fulfilled in us "after the flesh." (Remember,
it is again here a question not of salvation but of pleasing God.) Now,
because of our inability, God took two steps. In the first place he intervened
to deal with the heart of our problem. He sent his Son in the flesh, who died
for sin and in doing so "condemned sin in the flesh." That is to say, he took to
death representatively all that belonged to the old creation in us, whether we
speak of it as "our old man," "the flesh," or the carnal "I." Thus God struck at
the very root of our trouble by removing the fundamental ground of our
weakness. This was the first step.
But still "the ordinance of the law" remained to be fulfilled "in us." How
could this be done? It required God's further provision of the indwelling Holy
Spirit. It is he who is sent to take care of the inward side of this thing, and he
is able to do so, we are told, as we "walk... after the Spirit."
What does it mean to walk after the Spirit? It means two things. First, it
is not a work; it is a walk. Praise God, the burdensome and fruitless effort I
involved myself in when I sought "in the flesh" to please God gives place to a
quiet and restful dependence on "his working, which worketh in me mightily"
(Col. 1:29). That is why Paul contrasts the "works" of the flesh with the "fruit"
of the Spirit (Gal. 5:19, 22).
Then second, to "walk after" implies subjection. Walking after the flesh
means that I yield to the dictates of the flesh, and the following verses in
Romans 8:5-8 make clear where that leads me. It only brings me into conflict
with God. To walk after the Spirit is to be subject to the Spirit. There is one
thing that the man who walks after the Spirit cannot do, and that is be
independent of him. I must be subject to the Holy Spirit. The initiative of my
life must be with him. Only as I yield myself to obey him shall I find the "law of
the Spirit of life" in full operation and the "ordinance of the law" (all that I have
been trying to do to please God) being fulfilled—no longer by me but in me.
"As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God" (Rom. 8:14).
We are all familiar with the words of the benediction in 2 Corinthians
13:14: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all." The love of God is the source
of all spiritual blessing; the grace of the Lord Jesus has made it possible for
that spiritual wealth to become ours; and the communion of the Holy Ghost is
the means whereby it is imparted to us. Love is something hidden in the
heart of God; grace is that love expressed and made available in the Son;
communion is the impartation of that grace by the Spirit. What the Father has
devised concerning us the Son has accomplished for us, and now the Holy
Spirit communicates it to us. When therefore we discover something fresh
that the Lord Jesus has procured for us in his Cross, let us look, for its
realization, in the direction that God has indicated, and, by our steadfast
obedience to the Holy Spirit, keep wide open the way for him to impart it to us.
That is his ministry. He has come for that very purpose—that he may make
real in us all that is ours through the finished work of Christ.
We have learned in China that, when leading a soul to Christ, we must be
very thorough, for there is no certainty when he will again have the help of
other Christians. We always seek to make it clear to a new believer that,
when he has asked the Lord to forgive his sins and to come into his life, his
heart has become the residence of a living Person. The Holy Spirit of God is
now within him, to open to him the Scriptures that he may find Christ there, to
direct his prayer, to govern his life, and to reproduce in him the character of
his Lord.
I remember, late one summer, I went for a prolonged period of rest to a
hill-resort where accommodation was difficult to obtain, and while there it was
necessary for me to sleep in one house and take my meals in another, the
latter being the home of a mechanic and his wife. For the first two weeks of
my visit, apart from asking a blessing at each meal, I said nothing to my hosts
about the Gospel; and then one day my opportunity came to tell them about
the Lord Jesus. They were ready to listen and to come to him in simple faith
for the forgiveness of their sins. They were born again, and a new light and
joy came into their lives, for theirs was a real conversion. I took care to make
clear to them what had happened, and then, as the weather turned colder, the
time came for me to leave them and return to Shanghai.
During the cold winter months the man was in the habit of drinking wine
with his meals, and he was apt to do so to excess. After my departure, with
the return of the cold weather, the wine appeared on the table again, and that
day, as he had become accustomed to do, the husband bowed his head to
return thanks for the meal—but no words would come. After one or two vain
attempts he turned to his wife. "What is wrong?" he asked. "Why cannot we
pray today? Fetch the Bible and see what it has to say about wine-drinking."
I had left a copy of the Scriptures with them, but though the wife could read
she was ignorant of the Word, and she turned the pages in vain seeking for
light on the subject. They did not know how to consult God's Book and it was
impossible to consult God's messenger, for I was many miles away and it
might be months before they could see me. "Just drink your wine," said his
wife. "We'll refer the matter to brother Nee at the first opportunity." But still
the man found he just could not return thanks to the Lord for that wine. "Take
it away!" he said at length; and when she had done so, together they asked a
blessing on their meal.
When eventually the man was able to visit Shanghai he told me the story.
Using an expression familiar in Chinese: "Brother Nee," he said, "Resident
Boss ("Resident Boss"—The author's own rendering of li-mien tang-cia tih.—
Ed.) wouldn't let me have that drink!" "Very good, brother," I said. "You
always listen to Resident Boss!"
Many of us know that Christ is our life. We believe that the Spirit of God
is resident in us, but this fact has little effect upon our behavior. The question
is, do we know him as a living Person, and do we know him as "Boss?"
Chapter Ten Comments and Questions
The Path of Progress: Walking in the Spirit
Nee defines living 'in Adam‟ as knowing 'in experience all Adam's very
complete provision for sinning', and remarks that we have all found this most
effective in its outworking. He now proposes to deal with that feature of being
'in Christ' which is its absolute antithesis, namely, enjoying in experience the
complete provision by the Spirit for righteous living.
Some may find this chapter less stimulating, not because they disagree
with what is stated, but because they are now waiting to be told how to walk.
Here Nee seems to give but little instruction. It is, however, very difficult to tell
people how to walk. You can demonstrate walking to them; you can give
some support to them as they make a move; and you can encourage them to
take further steps. This is rather what Nee tries to do. There is no formula for
walking other than to choose your direction, to summon up the strength given
to you and then use it.
So the Christian's life becomes a succession of miracles—the lame man
walks!
Bible Readings: Romans 8:1-17; Galatians 5:13-25
Chapter Sub-headings
The Flesh and the Spirit
Christ Our Life
The Law of the Spirit of Life
The Manifestation of the Law of Life
The Fourth Step: 'Walk... After the Spirit'
Questions
1. What does it mean to live in the flesh?
2. What is the difference between 'holding the truth merely objectively'
and having a subjective experience of the truth?
3. Suggest ways in which a Christian may move out from the cover of
Christ.
4. If the Christian life is not only a changed life, what is it?
5. In the light of what Nee affirms, do you think it is possible for people
who are not 'in Christ' to display Christian graces?
6. Can you describe the distinction between sin and the law of sin?
7. What are the two reasons why men use willpower to try to please
God?
8. Is it a mistake to force yourself to be what you are not naturally?
9. We all deplore hypocrisy. But what do we do if we find that Christian
virtues do not flow spontaneously from us?
10. Have you had any experience of being either restrained or urged to
act by the 'Resident Boss'?
Chapter 11
One Body in Christ
Before we pass on to our last important subject we will review some of
the ground we have covered and summarize the steps taken. We have
sought to make things simple, and to explain clearly some of the experiences
which Christians commonly pass through. But it is clear that the new
discoveries that we make as we walk with the Lord are many, and we must be
careful to avoid the temptation to over-simplify the work of God. To do so
may lead us into serious confusion.
There are children of God who believe that all our salvation, in which they
would include the matter of leading a holy life, lies in an appreciation of the
value of the precious Blood. They rightly emphasize the importance of
keeping short accounts with God over known specific sins, and the continual
efficacy of the Blood to deal with sins committed, but they think of the Blood
as doing everything. They believe in a holiness which in fact means only
separation of the man from his past; that, through the up-to-date blotting out
of what he has done on the ground of the shed Blood, God separates a man
out of the world to be his, and that is holiness; and they stop there. Thus they
stop short of God's basic demands, and so of the full provision he has made.
I think we have by now seen clearly the inadequacy of this.
Then there are those who go further and see that God has included them
in the death of his Son on the Cross, in order to deliver them from sin and the
Law by dealing with the old man. These are they who really exercise faith in
the Lord, for they glory in Christ Jesus and have ceased to put confidence in
the flesh (Phil. 3:3). In them God has a clear foundation on which to build.
And from this as starting-point, many have gone further still and recognized
that consecration (using that word in the truest sense) means giving
themselves without reserve into his hands and following him in all things. All
these are first steps. Starting from them we have already touched upon yet
other phases of experience set before us by God and enjoyed by many. It is
always essential for us to remember that, while each of them is a precious
fragment of truth, no single one of them is by itself the whole of truth. All
come to us as the fruit of the work of Christ on the Cross, and we cannot
afford to ignore any.
A GATE AND A PATH
Recognizing a number of such phases in the life and experience of a
believer, we note now a further fact, namely that, though these phases do not
necessarily occur always in a fixed and precise order, they seem to be
marked by certain recurring steps or features. What are these steps? First
there is revelation. As we have seen, this always precedes faith and
experience. Through his Word God opens our eyes to the truth of some fact
concerning his Son, and then only, as in faith we accept that fact for
ourselves, does it become actual as experience in our lives. Thus we have:
1. Revelation (Objective).
2. Experience (Subjective).
Then further, we note that such experience usually takes the two-fold
form of a crisis leading to a continuous process. It is most helpful to think of
this in terms of John Bunyan's "wicket gate" through which Christian entered
upon a "narrow path." Our Lord Jesus spoke of such a gate and a path
leading unto life (Matt. 7:14), and experience accords with this. So now we
have:
1. Revelation.
2. Experience: (a) A wicket gate (Crisis).
(b) A narrow path (Process).
Now let us take some of the subjects we have been dealing with and see
how this helps us to understand them. We will take first our justification and
new birth. This begins with a revelation of the Lord Jesus in his atoning work
for our sins on the Cross; there follows the crisis of repentance and faith (the
wicket gate), whereby we are initially "made nigh" to God (Eph. 2:13); and this
leads us into a walk of maintained fellowship with him (the narrow path), for
which the ground of our day-to-day access is still the precious Blood (Heb.
10:19, 22). When we come to deliverance from sin, we again have three
steps: the Holy Spirit's work of revelation, or "knowing" (Rom. 6:6); the crisis
of faith, or "reckoning" (Rom. 6:11); and the continuing process of
consecration, or "presenting ourselves" to God (Rom. 6:13) on the basis of a
walk in newness of life. Consider next the gift of the Holy Spirit. This too
begins with a new "seeing" of the Lord Jesus as exalted to the throne, which
issues in the dual experience of the Spirit outpoured and the Spirit indwelling.
Going a stage further, to the matter of pleasing God, we find again the need
for spiritual illumination, that we may see the values of the Cross in regard to
"the flesh"—the entire self-life of man. Our acceptance of this by faith leads at
once to a "wicket gate" experience (Rom. 7:25), in which we initially cease
from "doing" and accept by faith the mighty working of the life of Christ to
satisfy God's practical demands in us. This in turn leads us into the "narrow
path" of a walk in obedience to the Spirit (Rom. 8:4).
The picture is not identical in each case, and we must beware of forcing
any rigid pattern upon the Holy Spirit's working; but perhaps any new
experience will come to us more or less on these lines. There will certainly
always be first an opening of our eyes to some new aspect of Christ and his
finished work, and then faith will open a gate into a pathway. Remember, too,
that our division of Christian experience into various subjects: justification,
new birth, the gift of the Spirit, deliverance, sanctification, etc., is for our
clearer understanding only. It does not mean that these stages must or will
always follow one another in a certain prescribed order. In fact, if a full
presentation of Christ and his Cross is made to us at the very outset, we may
well step into a great deal of experience from the first day of our Christian life,
even though the full explanation of much of it may only follow later. Would
that all Gospel preaching were of such a kind!
One thing is certain, that revelation will always precede faith. Seeing and
believing are two principles which govern Christian living. When we see
something that God has done in Christ our natural response is: "Thank you,
Lord!" and faith follows spontaneously. Revelation is always the work of the
Holy Spirit, who is given in order that, by coming alongside and opening to us
the Scriptures he may guide us into all the truth (John 16:13). Count upon
him, for he is here for that very thing; and when such difficulties as lack of
understanding or lack of faith confront you, address those difficulties directly
to the Lord: "Lord, open my eyes. Lord, make this new thing clear to me.
Lord, help thou my unbelief!" He will not let such prayers go unheeded.
THE FOURFOLD WORK OF CHRIST IN HIS CROSS
We are now in a position to go a step further still and to consider how
great a range is compassed by the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the light
of Christian experience and for the purpose of analysis, it may help us if we
recognize four aspects of God's redemptive work. But in doing so it is
essential to keep in mind that the Cross of Christ is one divine work, and not
many. Once in Judaea two thousand years ago the Lord Jesus died and rose
again, and he is now "by the right hand of God exalted" (Acts 2:33). The work
is finished and need never be repeated, nor can it be added to.
Of the four aspects of the Cross which we shall now mention, we have
already dealt with three in some detail. The last will be considered in the two
succeeding chapters of our study. They may be briefly summarized as
follows:
1. The Blood of Christ to deal with sins and guilt.
2. The Cross of Christ to deal with sin, the flesh and the natural man.
3. The Life of Christ made available to indwell, re-create and empower
man.
4. The Working of Death in the natural man that that indwelling Life may
be progressively manifest.
The first two of these aspects are remedial. They relate to the undoing of
the work of the Devil and the undoing of the sin of man. The last two are not
remedial but positive, and relate more directly to the securing of the purpose
of God. The first two are concerned with recovering what Adam lost by the
Fall; the last two are concerned with bringing us into, and bringing into us,
something that Adam never had. Thus we see that the achievement of the
Lord Jesus in his death and resurrection comprises both a work which
provided for the redemption of man and a work which made possible the
realization of the purpose of God.
We have dealt at some length in earlier chapters with the two aspects of
his death represented by the Blood for sins and guilt and the Cross for sin and
the flesh. In our discussion of the eternal purpose we have also looked briefly
at the third aspect—that represented by Christ as the grain of wheat—and we
have just seen something of its practical outworking in our last chapter, when
considering Christ as our life. Before, however, we pass on to the fourth
aspect, which I shall call "bearing the cross," we must say a little more about
this third side, namely, the release of the risen life in Christ to indwell man and
empower him for service.
We have spoken already of the purpose of God in creation and have said
that it embraced far more than Adam ever came to enjoy. What was that
purpose? God wanted to have a race of men whose members were gifted
with a spirit whereby communion would be possible with himself, who is Spirit.
That race, possessing God's own life, was to cooperate in securing his
purposed end by defeating every possible uprising of the enemy and undoing
his evil works. That was the great plan. How will it now be effected? The
answer is again to be found in the death of the Lord Jesus. It is a mighty
death. It is something positive and purposive, going far beyond the recovery
of a lost position; for by it, not only are sin and the old man dealt with and their
effects annulled, but something more, something infinitely greater and more
far-reaching, is introduced.
THE LOVE OF CHRIST
We must have before us now two passages of the Word, one from
Genesis 2 and one from Ephesians 5, which, considered together, are of
great importance at this point.
"And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he
slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof: and
the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and
brought her unto the man. And the man said, This is now bone of my bones,
and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out
of Man" (Gen. 2:21-23).
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and
gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the
washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself a
glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should
be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25-27).
In Ephesians 5 we have the only chapter in the Bible which explains the
passage in Genesis 2. What we have presented to us in Ephesians is indeed
very remarkable, if we reflect upon it. I refer to what is contained in those
words: "Christ ... loved the church." There is something most precious here.
We have been taught to think of ourselves as sinners needing
redemption. For generations that has been instilled into us, and we praise the
Lord for that as our beginning; but it is not what God has in view as his end.
God speaks here rather of "a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing; but... holy and without blemish." All too often we have thought
of the Church as being merely so many "saved sinners." It is that; but we
have made the terms almost equal to one another, as though it were only
that, which is not the case. Saved sinners—with that thought you have the
whole background of sin and the Fall; but in God's sight the Church is a divine
creation in his Son. The one is largely individual, the other corporate. With
the one the view is negative, belonging to the past; with the other it is positive,
looking forward. The "eternal purpose" is something in the mind of God from
eternity concerning his Son, and it has as its objective that the Son should
have a Body to express his life. Viewed from that standpoint—from the
standpoint of the heart of God—the Church is something which is beyond sin
and has never been touched by sin.
So we have an aspect of the death of the Lord Jesus in Ephesians which
we do not have so clearly in other places. In Romans things are viewed from
the standpoint of fallen man, and beginning with "Christ died for sinners,
enemies, the ungodly" (Rom. 5) we are led progressively to "the love of
Christ" (Rom. 8:35). In Ephesians, on the other hand, the standpoint is that of
God "before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4), and the heart of the
gospel is: "Christ ... loved the church, and gave himself up for it" (Eph. 5:25).
Thus, in Romans it is "we sinned," and the message is of God's love for
sinners (Rom. 5:8); whereas in Ephesians it is "Christ loved," and the love
here is the love of husband for wife. That kind of love has fundamentally
nothing to do with sin as such. What is in view in this passage is not
atonement for sin but the creation of the Church, for which end it is said that
he "gave himself."
There is thus an aspect of the death of the Lord Jesus which is altogether
positive and a matter particularly of love to his Church, where the question of
sin and sinners does not directly appear. To bring this fact home Paul takes
that incident in Genesis 2 as illustration. Now this is one of the marvelous
things in the Word, and if our eyes have been opened to see it, it will certainly
call forth from us worship.
From Genesis 3 onwards, from the "coats of skins" to Abel's sacrifice,
and on from there through the whole Old Testament, there are numerous
types which set forth the death of the Lord Jesus as an atonement for sin; yet
the apostle does not appeal here to any of those types of his death, but to this
one in Genesis 2. Note that; and then recall that it was not until Genesis 3
that sin came in. There is one type of the death of Christ in the Old
Testament which has nothing to do with sin, for it is not subsequent to the Fall
but prior to it, and that type is here in Genesis 2. Let us look at it for a
moment.
Could we say that Adam was put to sleep because Eve had committed a
serious sin? Is that what we have here? Certainly not, for Eve was not yet
even created. There were as yet no moral issues involved and no problems
at all. No, Adam was put to sleep for the express purpose that something
might be taken out of him to be formed into someone else. His sleep was not
for her sin but for her existence. That is what is taught in these verses. This
experience of Adam had as its object the creation of Eve, as something
determined in the divine counsels. God wanted a woman. He put the man to
sleep, took a rib from his side and made it into a woman, and brought her to
the man. That is the picture which God is giving us. It foreshadows an
aspect of the death of the Lord Jesus that is not primarily for atonement, but
answerable to the sleep of Adam in this chapter.
God forbid that I should suggest that the Lord Jesus did not die for
purposes of atonement. Praise God, he did. We must remember that today
we are in fact in Ephesians 5 and not in Genesis 2. Ephesians was written
after the Fall, to men who had suffered from its effects, and in it we have not
only the purpose in Creation but also the stars of the Fall—or there would
need to be no mention of "spot or wrinkle." Because we are still on the earth
and the Fall is a historic fact, redemption is needed (Eph. 1:7).
But we must always view redemption as an interruption, an "emergency"
measure, made necessary by a catastrophic break in the straight line of the
purpose of God. Redemption is big enough, wonderful enough, to occupy a
very large place in our vision, but God is saying that we should not make
redemption to be everything, as though man were created to be redeemed.
The Fall is indeed a tragic dip downwards in that line of purpose, and the
atonement a blessed recovery whereby our sins are blotted out and we are
restored; but when it is accomplished there yet remains a work to be done to
bring us into possession of that which Adam never possessed, and to give
God what his heart most desires. For God has never forsaken the purpose
which is represented by the straight line. Adam was never in possession of
the life of God as presented in the tree of life. But because of the one work of
the Lord Jesus in his death and resurrection (and we must emphasize again
that it is all one work) his life was released to become ours by faith, and we
have received more than Adam ever possessed. The very purpose of God is
brought within reach of fulfillment in us by our receiving Christ as our life.
Adam was put to sleep. We remember that it is said of believers that
they fall asleep, rather than that they die. Why? Because whenever death is
mentioned sin is there in the background. In Genesis 3 sin entered into the
world and death through sin, but Adam's sleep preceded that. So the type of
the Lord Jesus here is not like other types in the Old Testament, in relation to
sin and atonement there is a lamb or a bullock slain; but here Adam was not
slain, but only put to sleep to awake again. Thus he prefigures a death that is
not on account of sin, but that has in view increase in resurrection. Then too
we must note that Eve was not created as a separate entity by a separate
creation, parallel to that of Adam. Adam slept, and Eve was created out of
Adam. That is God's method with the Church. God's "second Man" has
awakened from his "sleep" and his Church is created in him and of him, to
draw her life from him and to display that resurrection life.
God has a Son, his only begotten, and he seeks that the Son should
have brethren. From the position of only begotten he will become the first
begotten, and instead of the Son alone. God will have many sons. One grain
of wheat has died and many grains will spring up. The first grain was once
the only grain; now it has become the first of many. The Lord Jesus laid down
his life, and that life emerged in many lives. These are the Biblical figures we
have used hitherto in our study to express this truth. Now, in the figure of
Eve, the singular takes the place of the plural. The outcome of the Cross is
shown to be a single person: a Bride for the Son. Christ loved the Church
and gave himself up for it.
ONE LIVING SACRIFICE
We have said that there is an aspect of the death of Christ presented to
us in Ephesians 5 which differs in some degree from that which we have been
studying in Romans. Yet in fact this aspect is the very end to which our study
of Romans has been moving, and it is into this that the letter is leading us as
we shall now see, for redemption leads us back into God's original line of
purpose.
In chapter 8 Paul speaks to us of Christ as the first-born Son among
many Spirit-led "sons of God" (Rom. 8:14). "For whom he foreknew, he also
foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the
firstborn among many brethren: and whom he foreordained, them he also
called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified,
them he also glorified" (Rom. 8:29, 30). Here justification is seen to lead on to
glory, a glory that is expressed not in one or more individuals but in a plurality:
in many who manifest the image of One. And this object of our redemption is
further set forth, as we have seen, in "the love of Christ" for his own, which is
the subject of the last verses of the chapter (8:35-39). But what is implicit
here in chapter 8 becomes explicit as we move over into chapter 12, the
subject of which is the Body of Christ.
After the first eight chapters of Romans, which we have been studying,
there follows a parenthesis in which God's sovereign dealings with Israel are
taken up and dealt with, before the theme of the first chapters is resumed.
Thus, for our present purpose, the argument of chapter 12 follows that of
chapter 8 and not of chapter 11. We might very simply summarize these
chapters thus: Our sins are forgiven (ch. 5), we are dead with Christ (ch. 6),
we are by nature utterly helpless (ch. 7), therefore we rely upon the indwelling
Spirit (ch. 8). After this, and as a consequence of it: "We ... are one body in
Christ" (ch. 12). It is as though this were the logical outcome of all that has
gone before, and the thing to which it has all been leading.
Romans 12 and the following chapters contain some very practical
instructions for our life and walk. These are introduced with an emphasis
once again on consecration. In chapter 6:13 Paul has said: "Present
yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as
instruments of righteousness unto God." But now in chapter 12:1 the
emphasis is a little different: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to
God, which is your reasonable service." This new appeal for consecration is
made to us as "brethren," linking us in thought to the "many brethren" of
chapter 8:29. It is a call to us for a united step of faith, expressed in terms of
the presenting of our bodies as one "living sacrifice" unto God.
This is something that goes beyond the merely individual, for it implies
contribution to a whole. The "presenting" is personal but the sacrifice is
corporate; it is one sacrifice. Intelligent service to God is one service. We
need never feel our contribution is not needed, for if it contributes to the
service, God is satisfied. And it is through this kind of service that we prove
"what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (ch. 12:2), or in
other words, realize our part in God's eternal purpose in Christ Jesus. So
Paul's appeal "to every man that is among you" (12:3) is in the light of this
new divine fact, that "we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally
members one of another" (12:5), and it is on this basis that the practical
instructions follow.
The vessel through which the Lord Jesus can reveal himself in this
generation is not the individual but the Body. True, "God hath dealt to each
man a measure of faith" (12:3), but alone in isolation man can never fulfill
God's purpose. It requires a complete Body to attain to the stature of Christ
and to display his glory. Oh, that we might really see this!
So Romans 12:3-6 draws from the figure of the human body the lesson of
our inter-dependence. Individual Christians are not the Body. They are its
members, and in a human body "all the members have not the same office."
The ear must not imagine itself to be an eye. No amount of prayer will give
sight to the ear—but the whole body can see through the eye. So (speaking
figuratively) I may have only the gift of hearing, but I can see through others
who have the gift of sight; or, perhaps I can walk but cannot work, so I receive
help from the hands. An all-too-common attitude to the things of the Lord is
that, "What I know, I know; and what I don't know, I don't know, and can do
quite well without." But in Christ, the things we do not know others do, and
we may know them and enter into the enjoyment of them through others.
Let me stress that this is not just a comfortable thought. It is a vital factor
in the life of God's people. We cannot get along without one another. That is
why fellowship in prayer is so important. Prayer together brings in the help of
the Body, as must be clear from Matthew 18:19, 20. Trusting the Lord by
myself may not be enough. I must trust him with others. I must learn to pray
"Our Father ..." on the basis of oneness with the Body, for without the help of
the Body I cannot get through. In the sphere of service this is even more
apparent. Alone I cannot serve the Lord effectively, and he will spare no
pains to teach me this. He will bring things to an end, allowing doors to close
and leaving me ineffectively knocking my head against a blank wall until I
realize that I need the help of the Body as well as of the Lord. For the life of
Christ is the life of the Body, and his gifts are given to us for work that builds
up the Body.
The Body is not an illustration but a fact. The Bible does not just say that
the Church is like a body, but that it is the Body of Christ. "We, who are
many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another." All the
members together are one Body, for all share his life—as though he were
himself distributed among his members. I was once with a group of Chinese
believers who found it very hard to understand how the Body could be one
when they were all separate individuals who made it up. One Sunday I was
about to break the bread at the Lord's table and I asked them to look very
carefully at the loaf before I broke it. Then, after it had been distributed and
eaten, I pointed out that though it was inside all of them it was still one loaf—
not many. The loaf was divided, but Christ is not divided even in the sense in
which that loaf was. He is still one Spirit in us, and we are all one in him.
This is the very opposite of man's condition by nature. In Adam I have
the life of Adam, but that is essentially individual. There is no union, no
fellowship in sin, but only self-interest and distrust of others. As I go on with
the Lord I soon discover, not only that the problem of sin and of my natural
strength has to be dealt with, but that there is also a further problem created
by my "individual" life, the life that is sufficient in itself and does not recognize
its need for and union in the Body. I may have got over the problems of sin
and the flesh, and yet still be a confirmed individualist. I want holiness and
victory and fruitfulness for myself personally and apart, albeit from the purest
motives. But such an attitude ignores the Body, and so cannot provide God
with satisfaction. He must deal with me therefore in this matter also, or I shall
remain in conflict with his ends. God does not blame me for being an
individual, but for my individualism. His greatest problem is not the outward
divisions and denominations that divide his Church but our own individualistic
hearts.
Yes, the Cross must do its work here, reminding me that in Christ I have
died to that old life of independence which I inherited from Adam, and that in
resurrection I have become not just an individual believer in Christ but a
member of his Body. There is a vast difference between the two. When I see
this, I shall at once have done with independence and shall seek fellowship.
The life of Christ in me will gravitate to the life of Christ in others. I can no
longer take an individual line. Jealousy will go. Competition will go. Private
work will go. My interests, my ambitions, my preferences, all will go. It will no
longer matter which of us does the work. All that will matter will be that the
Body grows.
I said: "When I see this ..." That is the great need: to see the Body of
Christ as another great divine fact; to have it break in upon our spirits by
heavenly revelation that "we, who are many, are one body in Christ." Only
the Holy Spirit can bring this home to us in all its meaning, but when he does
it will revolutionize our life and work.
MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM
We only see history back to the Fall. God sees it from the beginning.
There was something in God's mind before the Fall, and in the ages to come
that thing is to be fully realized. God knew all about sin and redemption; yet
in his great purpose for the Church set forth in Genesis 2 there is no view of
sin. It is as though (to speak in finite terms) he leaps in thought right over the
whole story of redemption and sees the Church in future eternity, having a
ministry and a (future) history which is altogether apart from sin and wholly of
God. It is the Body of Christ in glory, expressing nothing of fallen man, but
only that which is the image of the glorified Son of man. This is the Church
that has satisfied God's heart and has attained dominion.
In Ephesians 5 we stand within the history of redemption, and yet through
grace we still have this eternal purpose of God in view as expressed in the
statement that he will "present unto himself a glorious Church." But now we
note that the water of life and the cleansing Word are needed to prepare the
Church (now marred by the Fall) for presentation to Christ in glory. For now
there are defects to be remedied and wounds to be healed. And yet how
precious is the promise and how gracious are the words used of her: "not
having spot"—the scars of sin, whose very history is now forgotten; "or
wrinkle"—the marks of age and of time lost, for all is now made up and all is
new; and "without blemish"—so that Satan or demons or men can find no
ground for blame in her.
This is where we are now. The age is closing, and Satan's power is
greater than ever. Our warfare is with angels and principalities and powers
(Rom. 8:38; Eph. 6:12) who are set to withstand and destroy the work of God
in us by laying many things to the charge of God's elect. Alone we could
never be their match, but what we alone cannot do the Church can. Sin, selfreliance and individualism were Satan's master-strokes at the heart of God's
purpose in man, and in the Cross God has undone them. As we put our faith
in what he has done—in "God that justifieth" and in "Christ Jesus that died"
(Rom. 8:33, 34)—we present a front against which the very gates of Hades
shall not prevail. We, his Church, are "more than conquerors through him that
loved us" (Rom. 8:37).
Chapter Eleven Comments and Questions
One Body in Christ
Nee now leaps over the parenthetical chapters concerning Israel and
passes directly from Romans 8 to Roman 12, with its insistence that the
normal Christian life is corporate in its character: 'We who are many, are one
body' (Romans 12.5).
Those who find it difficult to follow the details of Nee's allegorical
allusions to Adam and his partner, Eve, should remember that while we must
not base doctrines on allegories or parables, we can often get fresh light on
truth by means of them. The point which Nee seeks to derive from the story
is that the Church, composed of Jews and Gentiles, is no byproduct of God's
dealings with men, no afterthought in the redemptive work of the Cross, but
God's original intention for the human race.
This chapter brings us to yet another contrast between life in Christ and
life in Adam. The latter is essentially individualistic, whereas the normal
Christian life is just the opposite. By His Cross Christ not only made me one
with Himself; He made me also one with my fellow believers. It is my old man
who demands independence; the New Man is a harmonious Body of many
interdependent members whose unity is maintained by the Cross which sets
aside personal ideas and wishes in favor of the will of God.
Bible readings: Romans 12:1-5; Ephesians 5:22-33
Chapter Sub-headings
A Gate and a Path
The Fourfold Work of Christ in His Cross
The Love of Christ
One Living Sacrifice
More Than Conquerors Through Him
Questions
1. Describe the twofold effect of the truth in its initial impact and in its
actual outworking.
2. Name the four aspects of the Cross dealt with in this book.
3. What was the original purpose of God in creation?
4. What is the distinction between a number of 'saved sinners' and the
Church of Christ?
5. It is said of believers that they fall asleep, rather than that they die.’ Is
this term ever used to describe the death of the Lord Jesus? If not,
why?
6. What does Nee suggest as the logical outcome of the spiritual
experiences described in Romans 5 to 8?
7. Suggest ways in which today we can helpfully give expression to the
fact that all believers are united in one Body.
8. Why does God blame us for individualism?
9. What are the practical means by which the Lord is preparing His
Church for glory?
10. What would you judge to be the principal features of the war of 'the
gates of Hades' against the Church?
Chapter 12
The Cross and the Soul Life
God has made full provision for our redemption in the Cross of Christ, but
he has not stopped there. In that Cross he has also made secure beyond
possibility of failure that eternal plan which Paul speaks of as having been
from all the ages "hid in God who created all things." That plan he has now
proclaimed "to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the
heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold
wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ
Jesus our Lord" (Eph. 3:9-11).
We have said that the work of the Cross has two results which bear
directly upon the realizing of that purpose in us. On the one hand it has
issued in the release of his life that it may find expression in us through the
indwelling Spirit. On the other hand it has made possible what we speak of
as "bearing the cross"; that is, our cooperation in the daily inworking of his
death whereby way is made in us for the manifestation of that new life,
through the bringing of the "natural man" progressively into his right place of
subjection to the Holy Spirit. Clearly these are the positive and the negative
sides of one thing. Equally clearly we are now touching more particularly on
the matter of progress in a life lived for God. Hitherto in dealing with the
Christian life we have placed our main emphasis upon the crisis by which it is
entered. Now our concern is more definitely with the walk of the disciple,
having especially in view his training as a servant of God. It is of him that the
Lord Jesus said: "Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after
me, cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:27).
So we come to a consideration of the natural man and the "bearing of the
cross." To understand this we must, at the risk of being tedious, go back
once more to Genesis and consider what it was that God sought to have in
man at the beginning, and how his purpose was frustrated. In this way we
shall be able to grasp more clearly the principles by which we can come again
to live in harmony with that purpose.
THE TRUE NATURE OF THE FALL
If we have even a little revelation of the plan of God we shall always think
much of the word "man." We shall say with the Psalmist, "What is man, that
thou art mindful of him?" The Bible makes it clear that what God desires
above all things is a man—a man who will be after his own heart.
So God created a man. In Genesis 2:7 we learn that Adam was created
a living soul, with a spirit inside to commune with God and with a body outside
to have contact with the material world. (Such New Testament verses as 1
Thessalonians 5:23 and Hebrews 4:12 confirm this threefold character of
man's being.) With his spirit Adam was in touch with the spiritual world of
God; with his body he was in touch with the physical world of material things.
He gathered up these two sides of God's creative act into himself to become a
personality, an entity living in the world, moving by itself and having powers of
free choice. Viewed thus as a whole, he was found to be a self-conscious
and self-expressing being, "a living soul."
We saw earlier that Adam was created perfect— by which we mean that
he was without imperfections because created by God—but that he was not
yet perfected. He needed a finishing touch somewhere. God had not yet
done all that he intended to do in Adam. There was more in view, but it was
as yet in abeyance. God was moving towards the fulfillment of his purpose in
creating man, a purpose which went beyond man himself, for it had in view
the securing to God of all his rights in the universe through man's
instrumentality. But how could man be instrumental in this? Only by a
cooperation that sprang from living union with God. God was seeking to have
not merely a race of men of one blood upon the earth, but a race which had,
in addition, his life resident within its members. Such a race will eventually
compass Satan's downfall and bring to fulfillment all that God has set his
heart upon. It is this that was in view with the creation of man.
Then again, we saw that Adam was created neutral. He had a spirit
which enabled him to hold communion with God, but as man he was not yet,
so to speak, finally orientated; he had powers of choice and he could, if he
liked, turn the opposite way. God's goal in man was "son-ship," or, in other
words, the expression of his life in human sons. That divine life was represented in the garden, as we saw, by the tree of life, bearing a fruit that could
be accepted, received, taken in. If Adam, created neutral, were voluntarily to
turn that way and, choosing dependence upon God, were to receive of the
tree of life (representing God's own life), God would then have that life in
union with men; he would have secured his spiritual sons. But if instead
Adam should turn to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would as a
result be "free," in the sense of being able to develop himself on his own lines
apart from God. Because, however, this latter choice involved complicity with
Satan, Adam would thereby put beyond his reach the attaining of his Godappointed goal.
THE HUMAN SOUL
Now we know the course that Adam chose. Standing between the two
trees, he yielded to Satan and took of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. This
determined the lines of his development. From then on he could command a
knowledge; he "knew." But—and here we come to the point—the fruit of the
tree of knowledge made the first man over-developed in his soul. The
emotion was touched, because the fruit was pleasant to the eyes, making him
"desire"; the mind with its reasoning power was developed, for he was "made
wise"; and the will was strengthened, so that in future he could always decide
which way he would go. The whole fruit ministered to the expansion and full
development of the soul, so that not only was the man a living soul, but from
henceforth man will live by the soul. It is not merely that man has a soul, but
that from that day on, the soul, with its independent powers of free choice,
usurps the place of the spirit as the animating power of man.
We have to distinguish here between two things, for the difference is
most important. God does not mind—in fact he of course intends—that we
should have a soul such as he gave to Adam. But what God has set himself
to do is to reverse something. There is something in man today which is not
just the fact of having and exercising a soul, but which constitutes a living by
the soul. It was this that Satan brought about in the Fall. He trapped man
into taking a course by which he could develop his soul so as to derive from it
his very spring of life.
We must, however, be careful. To remedy this does not mean that we
are going to cross out the soul altogether. You cannot do that. When today
the Cross is really working in us, we do not become inert, insensate,
characterless. No, we still possess a soul, and whenever we receive something from God the soul will still be used in relation to it, as an instrument, a
faculty, in a true subjection to him. But the point is: Are we keeping within
God's appointed limit, that is to say, within the bounds set by him in the
Garden at the beginning, with regard to the soul, or are we getting outside
those bounds?
What God is now doing is the pruning work of the vinedresser. In our
souls there is an uncontrolled development, an untimely growth, that has to
be checked and dealt with. God must cut that off. So now there are two
things before us to which our eyes must be opened. On the one hand God is
seeking to bring us to the place where we live by the life of his Son. On the
other hand he is doing a direct work in our hearts to undo that other natural
resource that is the result of the fruit of knowledge. Every day we are learning
these two lessons: a rising up of the life of this One, and a checking and a
handing over to death of that other soul-life. These two processes go on all
the time, for God is seeking the fully developed life of his Son in us in order to
manifest himself, and to that end he is bringing us back, as to our soul, to
Adam's starting-point. So Paul says: "We which live are alway delivered unto
death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our
mortal flesh (2 Cor. 4:11).
What does this mean? It simply means that I will not take any action
without relying on God. I will find no sufficiency in myself. I will not take any
step just because I have the power to do so. Even though I have that
inherited power within me, I will not go ahead solely upon it as basis; I will put
no reliance on myself. By taking the fruit, Adam became possessed of an
inherent power to act, but a power which, by its independence of God, played
right into Satan's hands. You lose that power to act when you come to know
the Lord. The Lord cuts it off and you find you can no longer act on your own
initiative. You have to live by the life of another; you have to draw everything
from him.
Oh, friends, I think we all know ourselves in measure, but many a time
we do not truly tremble at ourselves. We may, in a manner of courtesy to
God, say: "If the Lord does not want it, I cannot do it," but in reality our
subconscious thought is that really we can do it quite well ourselves, even if
God does not ask us to do it nor empower us for it. Too often we have been
caused to act, to think, to decide, to have powers regardless of him. Many of
us Christians today are men with over-developed souls. We have grown too
big in ourselves. When we are in that condition, it is possible for the life of the
Son of God in us to be confined and crowded almost out of action.
NATURAL ENERGY IN THE WORK OF GOD
The power, the energy of the soul is present with us all. Those who have
been taught by the Lord repudiate that principle as a life principle; they refuse
to live by it; they will not let it reign, nor allow it to be the power-spring of the
work of God. But those who have not been taught of God rely upon it; they
utilize it; they think it is the power.
Let us take first an obvious illustration of this. Far too many of us in the
past have reasoned as follows. Here is a delightfully good-natured man, with
a clear brain, splendid managing powers and sound judgment. In our hearts
we say, "If that man could be a Christian, what an asset he would be to the
Church! If only he were the Lord's, what a lot it would mean to his cause!"
But think for a moment. Where did that man's good nature come from?
Whence are those splendid managing powers and that good judgment? Not
from new birth, for he is not yet born again. We know we have all been born
of the flesh; therefore we need a new birth. But the Lord Jesus had
something to say about this in John 3:6: "That which is born of the flesh is
flesh." Everything which comes not by new birth but by natural birth is flesh
and will only bring glory to man, not God. That statement is not very
palatable, but it is true.
We have spoken of soul-power or natural energy. What is this natural
energy? It is simply what I can do, what I am of myself, what I have inherited
of natural gifts and resources. We are none of us without the power of the
soul, first need is to recognize it for what it is.
Take for example the human mind. I may by nature have a keen mind.
Before my new birth I had it naturally, as something developed my natural
birth. But the trouble arises here. I become converted, I am born anew, a
deep work is affected in my spirit, an essential union has been wrought with
the Father of our spirits. Thereafter there are in me two things: I have now a
union with God that has been set up in my spirit, but at the same time I carry
over with me something which I derive from my natural birth. Now what am I
going to do about it?
The natural tendency is this. Formerly I used to use my mind to pore
over history, over business, over chemistry, over questions of the world, or
literature, or poetry. I used my keen mind to get the best out of those studies.
But now my desire has been changed, so henceforth I employ the same mind
in just the same way in the things of God. I have therefore changed my
subject of interest, but I have not changed method of working. That is the
whole point. My interests have been utterly changed (praise God for that!),
but now I utilize the same power to study Corinthians and Ephesians that I
used before to pursue history and geography. But that power is not of the
new creation; and God will not be satisfied with this simple exchange of
interests. The trouble with so many of us is that we have changed the
channel into which our energies are directed, but we have not changed the
source of those energies.
You will find there are many such things which we carry over into the
service of God. Consider the matter of eloquence. There are some men who
are born orators; they can present a case very convincingly indeed. Then
they become converted, and, without asking ourselves where they really
stand in relation to spiritual things, we put them on the platform and make
preachers of them. We encourage them to use their natural powers for
preaching, and again it is a change of subject but the same power. We forget
that, in the matter of our resource for handling the things of God, it is a
question not of comparative value but of origin—of where the resource
springs from. It is not so much a matter of what we are doing, but of what
powers we are employing to do it, and who is controlling those powers. The
man God can use may well be eloquent, but there is the mark of the Cross
upon that eloquence, and the controlling hand of the Spirit of God is apparent
in its use. We think too little of the source of our energy and too much of the
end to which it is directed, forgetting that with God the end never justifies the
means.
To test the truth of this, let us take a hypothetical case. Mr. A. is a very
good speaker: he can talk fluently and most convincingly on any subject, but
in practical things he is a very bad manager. Mr. B., on the other hand, is a
poor speaker: he cannot express himself clearly but wanders all round his
subject, never coming to a point; yet on the other hand he is a splendid
manager, most competent in all matters of business. Both these men get
converted, and both become earnest Christians. Let us suppose now that I
call on them both and ask them to speak at a convention, and that both
accept.
Now what will happen? I have asked the self same thing of both men,
but who do you think will pray the harder! Almost certainly Mr. B. Why?
Because he is no speaker. In the matter of eloquence he has no resources of
his own to depend upon. He will pray: "Lord, if you do not give me power for
this, I cannot do it." Of course Mr. A. will pray too, but maybe not in the same
way as Mr. B. because he has something of natural aptitude upon which to
rely.
Now let us suppose that, instead of asking them to speak, I ask them
both to take charge of the practical side of affairs at the convention. What will
happen? The position will be exactly reversed. Now it will be Mr. A.'s turn to
pray hard, for he knows full well that he has no organizing ability. Mr. B. of
course will pray too, but perhaps without quite the same urgency, for though
he knows his need of the Lord, he is not nearly so conscious of his need in
business matters as is Mr. A.
Do you see the difference between natural and spiritual gifts? Anything
we can do without prayer and without an utter dependence upon God must
come from the spring of natural life that is tainted with the flesh. We must see
this clearly. Of course it is not true that those only are suited for a particular
work who lack the natural gift for it. The point is that, whether naturally gifted
or not—and we should praise God for all his gifts—they must know the touch
of the Cross in death upon all that is of nature, and their complete
dependence upon the God of resurrection. All too readily do we envy our
neighbor who has some outstanding natural gift, and fail to realize that our
own possession of it, apart from such a working of the Cross, could prove a
barrier to the very thing that God is seeking to manifest in us.
Shortly after my conversion I went out preaching in the villages. I had
had a good education and was well-versed in the Scriptures, so I considered
myself thoroughly capable of instructing the village folk, among whom were
quite a number of illiterate women. But after several visits I discovered that,
despite their illiteracy, those women had an intimate knowledge of the Lord. I
knew the Book they haltingly read; they knew the One of whom the Book
spoke. I had much in myself; they had much in the Spirit. How many
Christian teachers today are teaching others as I was then, very largely in the
strength of their carnal equipment!
Once I met a young brother—young, that is to say, in years, but who had
learned a good deal of the Lord. God had brought him through much
tribulation to gain that knowledge of himself. As I was talking with him I said,
"Brother, what has the Lord really been teaching you these days?" He
replied, "Only one thing: that I can do nothing apart from him." "Do you really
mean," I asked, "that you can do nothing?" "Well, no," he said. "Of course I
can do many things! In fact that has been just my trouble. Oh, you know, I
have always been so confident in myself. I know I am well able to do lots of
things." So I asked, "What then do you mean when you say you can do
nothing apart from him?" He answered, "The Lord has shown me that I can
do anything, but that he has said, 'Apart from me ye can do nothing.' So it
comes to this, that everything I have done and can still do apart from him is
nothing!"
We have to come to that valuation. I do not mean to say we cannot do a
lot of things, for we can. We can take meetings and build churches, we can
go to the ends of the earth and found missions, and we can seem to bear
fruit; but remember that the Lord's word is: "Every plant which my heavenly
Father planted not, shall be rooted up" (Matt. 15:13). God is the only
legitimate Originator in the universe (Gen. 1:1), and his Holy Spirit is the only
legitimate initiator in our hearts. Anything that you or I plan and set on foot
without him has the taint of the flesh upon it, and it will never reach the realm
of the Spirit however earnestly we seek God's blessing on it. It may last for
years, and then we may think we will adjust here and improve there and
maybe bring it on a better plane, but it cannot be done.
Origin determines destination, and what was "of the flesh" originally will
never be made spiritual by any amount of "improvement." That which is born
of the flesh is flesh, and it will never be otherwise. So anything for which we
are sufficient in ourselves is "nothing" in God's estimate, and we have to
accept his estimate and write it down as nothing. "The flesh profiteth
nothing." It is only what comes from above that will abide.
We cannot see this simply by being told it. God must teach us what is
meant, by putting his finger on something which he sees and saying: "This is
natural; this has its source in the old creation, and did not originate with me;
this cannot abide." Until he does so, we may agree in principle, but we can
never really see it. We may assent to, and even enjoy, the teaching, but we
shall never truly loathe ourselves.
But there will come a day when God opens our eyes. Facing a particular
issue we shall have to say, as by revelation: "it is unclean, it is impure; Lord, I
see it!" The word "purity" is a blessed word. I always associate it with the
Spirit. Purity means something altogether of the Spirit. Impurity means
mixture. When God opens our eyes to see that the natural life is something
that, in itself, he can never use in his work, then we find we do not enjoy the
doctrine any longer. Rather we loathe ourselves for the impurity that is in us:
but when that point is reached, God begins his work of deliverance. We are
going on shortly to look at the provision he has made for that deliverance, but
we must stay for a little longer with this matter of revelation.
THE LIGHT OF GOD AND KNOWLEDGE
Of course, if one does not set out to serve the Lord wholeheartedly, one
does not feel the necessity for light. It is only when one has been
apprehended by God, and seeks to go forward with him, that one finds how
necessary light is. There is a fundamental need of light in order for us to
know the mind of God; to know what is of the spirit and what is of the soul; to
know what is divine and what is merely of man; to discern what is truly
heavenly and what is only earthly; to understand the difference between
things which are spiritual and things which are carnal; to know whether God is
really leading us or whether we are just being moved by our feelings, senses
or imaginations. It is when we have reached a position where we would like
to follow God fully that we find light to be the most necessary thing in the
Christian life.
In my conversations with younger brothers and sisters, one question
comes up again and again. It is: How can I know that I am walking in the
Spirit? How do I distinguish which prompting within me is from the Holy Spirit
and which is from myself? It seems that all are alike in this; but some have
gone further. They are trying to look within, to differentiate, to discriminate, to
analyze, and in doing so are bringing themselves into deeper bondage. Now
this is a situation which is really dangerous to Christian life, for inward
knowledge will never be reached along the barren path of self-analysis.
We are never told in the Word of God to examine our inward condition.
(The two apparent exceptions to this are found in 1 Corinthians 11:28, 31 and
2 Corinthians 13:5. But the former passage calls upon us to discern
ourselves as to whether we recognize the Lord's body or not, and this is in
particular connection with the Lord's table. It is not concerned with selfknowledge as such. The strong command of Paul in the latter passage is to
examine ourselves as to whether or not we are "in the faith." It is a question
of the existence or otherwise in us of a fundamental faith; of whether, in fact,
we are Christians. This is in no way related to our daily walk in the Spirit, or to
self-knowledge.—W.N.) That way leads only to uncertainty, vacillation and
despair. Of course we have to have self-knowledge. We have to know what
is going on within. We do not want to live in a fool's paradise; to have gone
altogether wrong and yet not know we have gone wrong; to have a spartan
will and yet think we are pursuing the will of God. But such self-knowledge
does not come by our turning within; by our analyzing our feelings and
motives and everything that is going on inside, and then trying to pronounce
whether we are walking in the flesh or in the Spirit.
There are several passages in the Psalms which illumine this subject.
The first is in Psalm 36:9: "In thy light shall we see light." I think that is one of
the best verses in the Old Testament. There are two lights there. There is
"thy light," and then, when we have come into that light, we shall "see light."
Now those two lights are different. We might say that the first is objective
and the second subjective. The first light is the light which belongs to God but
is shed upon us; the second is the knowledge imparted by that light. "In thy
light shall we see light": we shall know something; we shall be clear about
something; we shall see. No turning within, no introspective self-examination
will ever bring us to that clear place. No, it is when there is light coming from
God that we see.
I think it is so simple. If we want to satisfy ourselves that our face is
clean, what do we do? Do we feel it carefully all over with our hands? No, of
course not. We find a mirror and we bring it to the light. In that light
everything becomes clear. No sight ever came by feeling or analyzing. Sight
only comes by the light of God coming in; and when once it has come, there
is no longer need to ask if a thing is right or wrong. We know.
You remember again how in Psalm 139:23 the writer says: "Search me,
O God, and know my heart." You realize, do you not, what it means to say
"Search me"? It certainly does not mean that I search myself. "Search me"
means "You search me!" That is the way of illumination. It is for God to come
in and search; it is not for me to search. Of course that will never mean that I
may go blindly on, careless of my true condition. That is not the point. The
point is that however much my self-examination may reveal in me that needs
putting right, such searching never really gets below the surface. My true
knowledge of self comes not from my searching myself but from God
searching me.
But, you ask, what does it mean in practice for us to come into the light?
How does it work? How do we see light in his light? Here again the Psalmist
comes to our help. "The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth
understanding unto the simple" (Psalm 119:130 A.V.). In spiritual things we
are all "simple." We are dependent upon God to give us understanding, and
especially is this so in the matter of our own true nature. And it is here that
the Word of God operates. In the New Testament the passage which this
most clearly is in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "The word of God is living, and
active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the
dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the
thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature that is not manifest
in his sight: but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with
whom we have to do" (Heb. 4:12, 13). Yes, it is the Word of God, the
penetrating Scripture of truth, that settles our questions. It is that which
discerns our motives and defines for us their true source in soul or spirit.
With this I think we can pass on from the doctrinal to the practical side of
things. Many of us, I am sure, are living quite honestly before God. We have
been making progress, and we do not know of anything much wrong with us.
Then one day, as we go on, we meet with a fulfillment of that word: "The
entrance of thy words giveth light." Some servant of God has been used by
him to confront us with his living Word, and that Word has made an entrance
into us. Or perhaps we ourselves have been waiting before God and,
whether from our memory of Scripture or from the page itself, his Word has
come to us in power. Then it is we see something which we have never seen
before. We are convicted. We know where we are wrong, and we look up
and confess: "Lord, I see it. There is impurity there. There is mixture. How
blind I was! Just fancy that for so many years I have been wrong there and
have never known it!" Light comes in and we see light. The light of God
brings us to see the light concerning ourselves, and it is an abiding principle
that every knowledge of self comes to us in that way.
It may not always be the Scriptures. Some of us have known saints who
really knew the Lord, and through praying with them or talking with them, in
the light of God radiating from them, we have seen something which we never
saw before. I have met one such, who is now with the Lord, and I always
think of her as a "lighted" Christian. If I did but walk into her room, I was
brought immediately to a sense of God. In those days I was very young and
had been converted about two years, and I had lots of plans, lots of beautiful
thoughts, lots of schemes for the Lord to sanction, a hundred and one things
which I thought would be marvelous if they were all brought to fruition. With
all these things I came to her to try to persuade her; to tell her that this or that
was the thing to do.
Before I could open my mouth, she would just say a few words in quite
an ordinary way. Light dawned! It simply put me to shame. My "doing" and
my scheming were all so natural, so full of man. Something happened. I was
brought to a place where I could say: "Lord, my mind is set only on creaturely
activities, but here is someone who is not out for them at all. Teach me to
walk that way." She had but one motive, one desire, and that was for God.
Written in the front of her Bible were these words: "Lord, I want nothing for
myself." Yes, she lived for God alone, and where that is the case you will find
that such a one is bathed in light, and that light illuminates others. That is real
witness. (This is one of several references by the author to the late Miss
Margaret E. Barber of Pagoda Anchorage, Foochow.)
Light has one law: it shines wherever it is admitted. That is the only
requirement. We may shut it out of ourselves; it fears nothing else. If we
throw ourselves open to God, he will reveal. The trouble comes when we
have closed areas, locked and barred places in our hearts, where we think
with pride that we are right. Our defeat then lies less in our being wrong than
in our not knowing that we are wrong. Wrong may be a question of natural
strength; ignorance of it is a question of light. You can see the natural
strength in some but they cannot see it themselves. Oh, we need to be
sincere and humble, and to open ourselves before God! Those who are open
can see. God is light, and we cannot live in his light and be without
understanding. Let us say again with the Psalmist: "O send out thy light and
thy truth: let them lead me" (Psalm 43:3).
We praise God that today sin is being brought to the notice of Christians
more than hitherto. In many places the eyes of Christians have been opened
to see that victory over sin is important in, Christian life, and in consequence
many are walking closer to the Lord in seeking deliverance there. Praise the
Lord for any movement towards himself, any movement back to real holiness
unto God! But that is not enough. There is one thing that must be touched,
and that is the very life of the man, not merely his sins. The question of his
soul power, his driving force, lies still at the heart of things. To make
everything of sin, or even of the flesh in its more obvious manifestations, is
still to be on the surface. You have not yet got to the root of the problem.
Adam did not let sin into the world by committing murder. That came
later. Adam let in sin by choosing to have his soul developed to a place
where he could go on by himself apart from God. When, therefore, God
secures for his glory that race of men who will be the instrument of his
purpose in the universe, they will be a people whose life—yea, whose very
breath—is dependent upon him. He will be the "tree of life" to them.
What I more and more feel the need of in myself, and what I believe, as
his Children, we all need to seek from God, is a real revelation of ourselves. I
repeat that I do not mean we should be for ever looking within and asking:
"Now, is this soul or is it spirit?" That will never get us anywhere; it is
darkness. No, Scripture shows us how the saints were brought to selfknowledge. It was always by light from God, and the light is God himself.
Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Peter, Paul, John, all came to a knowledge of
themselves because the Lord flashed himself upon them, and that flash
brought revelation and conviction. (Isa. 6:5; Ezek. 1:28; Dan. 10:8; Luke
22:61, 62; Acts 9:3-5; Rev. 1:17.)
We can never know either the hatefulness of sin or the treachery of our
self-nature until there is that flash of God upon us. I speak not of a sensation
but of an inward revelation of the Lord himself through his Word. Such a
breaking in of divine light does for us what doctrine alone can never do.
Christ is our light; and he is the living Word. As we read the Scriptures,
that life in him brings revelation. "The life was the light of men" (John 1:4).
Such illumination may not come to us all at once, but gradually; but it will be
more and more clear and searching, until we see ourselves in the light of God
and all our self-confidence is gone. For light is the purest thing in the world.
It cleanses. It sterilizes. It kills what should not be there. In its radiance the
"dividing asunder of joints and marrow" becomes to us a fact and no mere
teaching. We know fear and trembling as we recognize the corruption of our
nature, the hatefulness of self, and the real threat to the work of God of our
soul-life and energy, untamed and uncontrolled by his Holy Spirit. As never
before, we see now how much of us needs God's drastic dealing if he is to
use us, and we know that, apart from his dominion, as servants of God we are
finished.
But here the Cross, in its widest meaning, will come to our help again,
and we shall seek now to examine an aspect of its work which meets and
deals with our problem of the human soul. For only a thorough understanding
of the Cross can bring us to that place of dependence which the Lord Jesus
himself voluntarily took when he said: "I can of myself do nothing: as I hear, I
judge: and my judgment is righteous; because I seek not mine own will, but
the will of him that sent me" (John 5:30).
Chapter Twelve Comments and Questions
The Cross and the Soul Life
It is not generally appreciated that while the Holy Spirit desires to govern
and use both our bodies and our souls, He does not make His headquarters
in our soul, but lives in our spirit (small letter „s‟). In Adam's case, on the day
when he sinned, his spirit died—as God had said it would—which means that
he lost all inner communication with God. Now in Christ believers have been
made alive, that is, they have vital communication with God in the realm of the
renewed spirit (Romans 8.16).
By the Cross God has provided for the imbalance caused by the Fall,
delivering the Christian from having a life governed by the power of his own
soul. We readily understand that man must not be governed by his body, for
that reduces him to the level of the beasts, but we do not so readily
appreciate that he must not be governed by his soul either, for that leaves him
a creature of independence, obliged to hold his own ideas and make his own
decisions without dependence on God.
Salvation should consist in having our souls restored, i.e. removed from
their usurped position of authority in our lives and subordinated to our spirit's
cooperation with the Holy Spirit.
Bible Readings: Luke 14:25-27; 2 Corinthians 5:14-18
Chapter Sub-headings
The True Nature of the Fall
The Human Soul
Natural Energy in the Work of God
The Light of God and Knowledge
QUESTIONS
1. How does Nee describe the action of 'bearing the cross'?
2. 'Adam was created neutral.’ Is this still true of:
(a) Unregenerate men?
(b) Christian men?
3. Name some of the possible ways by which the life of the Son of God
can be confined and crowded almost out of action in our service for
God.
4. Find some statements in John's Gospel in which Jesus said that He
could not act on His own. Was He confessing literal incapacity or the
exercise of His choice in the matter?
5. What proofs does Nee give to identify that which springs from the
natural life?
6. How does Nee differentiate between purity and impurity in this matter
of soul life?
7. When is it that we become aware of our great need of light from God?
8. Suggest some of the perils of self-examination.
9. Have you ever met what Nee describes as a 'lighted' Christian? What
has been the effect in your case?
10. Confirm what Nee says about Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Peter, Paul and
John by considering the Scriptures which he quotes.
Chapter 13
The Path of Progress: Bearing the Cross
In our previous chapter we have touched several times upon the matter
of service for the Lord. As we come now to look at the provision that God has
made to meet the problem created by the soul-life of man, it will be helpful if
we approach that problem by considering first the principles that regulate all
such service. God has laid down spiritual laws which govern our world for
him and from which no one who tries to serve him may deviate. The basis of
our salvation, as we well know, is the fact of the Lord's death and
resurrection; but the conditions of our service are no less definite. Just as the
fact of the death and resurrection of the Lord is the ground of our acceptance
with God, so the principle of death and resurrection is the basis of our life and
service for him.
THE BASIS OF ALL TRUE MINISTRY
No one can be a true servant of God without knowing the principle of
death and the principle of resurrection. Even the Lord Jesus himself served
on that basis. You will find in Matthew 3 that, before his public ministry ever
began, our Lord submitted himself to baptism. He was baptized not because
he had any sin, or anything which needed cleansing. No, we know the
meaning of baptism: it is a figure of death and resurrection. The ministry of
the Lord did not begin until, in figure, he had taken his stand there. After he
had been baptized and had voluntarily taken the ground of death and
resurrection, the Holy Spirit came upon him, and then he ministered.
What does this teach us? Our Lord was a sinless Man. None but he has
trodden this earth and known no sin. Yet as Man he had a separate
personality from his Father. Now we must tread very carefully when we touch
our Lord; but remember his words: "I seek not mine own will, but the will of
him that sent me." What does this mean? It certainly does not mean that the
Lord had no will of his own. He had a will, as his own words show. As Son of
man he had a will, but he did not do it; he came to do the will of the Father.
So this is the point. That element in him which is in distinction from the Father
is the human soul, which he assumed when he was "found in fashion as a
man." Being a perfect Man our Lord had a soul, and of course a body, just as
you and I have a soul and a body, and it was thus possible for him to act from
the soul—that is, from himself.
You remember that immediately after the Lord's baptism, and before his
public ministry began, Satan came and tempted him. He tempted him to
satisfy his essential needs by turning stones to bread; to secure immediate
respect for his ministry by appearing miraculously in the temple court, to
assume without delay the world dominion destined for him; and you are
inclined to wonder why he tempted him to do such strange things. He might
rather, you feel, have tempted him to sin in a more thoroughgoing way. But
Satan did not do that; he knew better. He only said to Jesus: "If thou art the
Son of God, command that these stones become bread." What did it mean?
The implication was this: "If you are the Son of God you must do something to
prove it. Here is a challenge. Some will certainly raise a question as to
whether your claim is real or not. Why do you not settle the matter finally now
by coming out and proving it?"
The whole subtle object of Satan was to get the Lord to act for himself—
that is, from the soul—and, by the stand he took, Jesus absolutely repudiated
such action. In Adam, man had acted from himself apart from God; that was
the whole tragedy of the garden. Now in a similar situation the Son of man
takes another ground. Later he defines it as his basic life-principle—and I like
the word in the Greek: "The Son can do nothing out from himself" (John 5:19).
That total denial of the supremacy of the soul-life was to govern all his
ministry.
So we can safely say that all the work which the Lord Jesus did on earth,
prior to his actual death on the cross, was done with the principle of death and
resurrection as basis, even though as an actual event Calvary still lay in the
future. Everything he did was on the ground. But if this is so—if the Son of
man has to go through death and resurrection (in figure and in principle) in
order to work, can we do otherwise? Surely no servant of the Lord can serve
him without himself knowing the working of that principle in his life; It is of
course out of the question.
Jesus made this very clear to his disciples when he left them. He had
died and was risen, and now he told them to wait in Jerusalem for power to
come upon them. What is this power of the Holy Spirit, this "power from on
high" of which he spoke? It is nothing less than the virtue of his death,
resurrection and ascension. To use another figure, the Holy Spirit is the
Vessel in whom all the values of the death, resurrection and exaltation of the
Lord are deposited, that they may be brought to us. He is the one who
"contains" those values and mediates them to men. That is why the Spirit
could not be given until Jesus had been glorified. Then only could he rest
upon men and women that they might witness; for without the values of the
death and resurrection of Christ all such witness is empty.
If we turn to the Old Testament we find the same thing is there. I would
refer you to a familiar passage in the seventeenth chapter of Numbers. The
matter of Aaron's ministry has been contested. There is a question among
the people as to whether Aaron is truly the chosen of God. They have
entertained a suspicion, and have said in effect: "Whether that man is
ordained of God or not, we do not know!" and so God sets out to prove who is
his servant and who is not. How does he do so? Twelve dead rods are laid
before the Lord in the sanctuary over against the testimony, and are left there
for a night. By the morning, the Lord has indicated his chosen minister by the
rod which buds, blossoms and bears fruit.
We all know the meaning of that. The budding almond rod speaks of
resurrection. It is death and resurrection that marks God-recognized ministry.
Without that you have nothing. The budding of Aaron's rod proved him to be
on a true basis, and God will only recognize as his ministers those who have
come through death to resurrection ground.
We have seen the death of Christ working in different ways. We know
how it has worked in regard to the forgiveness of our sins, and that without
the shedding of Blood there is no remission. Further on, we have seen how
his death works to deliver us from sin's power, and that our old man has been
crucified with him in order that henceforth we should not serve sin. Going
further still, the question of human self-will arose, and our need of
consecration became apparent; and we found death working that way to bring
about in us a willingness to let go our own choices and obey him. That
indeed constitutes a starting-point for our ministry, but still it does not touch
the core of the question. There may still be the lack of knowledge of what is
meant by the soul.
Then another phase is presented to us in Romans 7 where the question
of holiness of life is in view—a living, personal holiness. There you find a true
man of God trying to please God in righteousness, and he comes under the
law and the law finds him out. He is trying to please God by using his own
carnal power, and the Cross has to bring him to the place where he says, "I
cannot do it. I Cannot satisfy God with my powers; I can only trust the Holy
Spirit to do that in me." I believe some of us have passed through deep
waters to learn this, and to discover the value of the death of the Lord working
in this way.
Now mark you, there is still a great difference between "the flesh," as
spoken of in Romans 7 in relation to holiness of life, and the working of the
natural energies of the soul-life in the service of the Lord. With all the above
being known, and known in experience, there still remains this one sphere
more which the death of the Lord must enter before we are truly of service to
him. For even with all these experiences, we are still unsafe for him to use
until this further thing is effected in us. How many of God's servants are used
by him, as we say in China, to build twelve feet of wall, only, when they have
done so, to undo it all by themselves pulling down fifteen feet! We are used in
a sense, but at the same time we destroy our own work, and sometimes that
of others also, because of there being somewhat something undealt with by
the Cross.
We now have to see how the Lord has set out to deal with the soul, and
then, more particularly, how this touches the question of our service for him.
THE SUBJECTIVE WORKING OF THE CROSS
We must keep before us now four passages from the Gospels. They are:
Matthew 10:34-39; Mark 8:32-35; Luke 17:32-34; and John 12:24-26. These
four passages have something in common. In each you have the Lord
himself speaking to us concerning the soul-activity of man, and in each a
different aspect or manifestation of the soul-life is touched upon. In these
verses he makes it very plain that the soul of man can be dealt with in one
way and in one way only, and that is by our bearing the cross daily and
following him.
As we have just seen, the soul-life or natural life that is here in view is
something further than what we have in those passages which are concerned
with the old man of the flesh. We have sought to make clear that, in respect
of our old man, God emphasizes the thing he has done once for all in
crucifying us with Christ on the Cross. We have seen that three times in the
Epistle to the Galatians the "crucifying" aspect of the Cross is referred to as a
thing accomplished; and in Romans 6:6 we have the clear statement that "our
old man was crucified," which, if the tense of the word means anything, we
might well paraphrase: "Our old man has been finally and for ever crucified."
It is something done, to be apprehended by divine revelation and then
accepted by an act of simple faith.
But there is a further aspect of the Cross, namely that implied in the
expression "bearing his cross daily," which is before us now. The Cross has
borne me; now I must bear it; and this bearing of the Cross is an inward thing.
It is this that we mean when we speak of "the subjective working of the
Cross." Moreover it is a continuous process, a step by step following after
him. It is this which is now brought before us in relation to the soul, and as we
have just said, with an emphasis here that is not quite the same as with the
old man. We do not have here the "crucifixion" of the soul itself, in the sense
that our natural gifts and faculties, our personality and our individuality, are to
be put away altogether. Were it so it could hardly be said of us, as it is in
Hebrews 10:39, that we are to "have faith unto the saving of the soul."
(Compare 1 Peter 1:9; Luke 21:19.) No, we do not lose our souls in this
sense, for to do so would be to lose our individual existence completely. The
soul is still there with its natural endowments, but the Cross is brought to bear
upon it to bring those natural endowments into death—to put the mark of his
death upon them—and thereafter, as God may please, to give them back to
us in glorious resurrection.
It is in this sense that Paul, writing to the Philippians, expresses the
desire "that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the
fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death" (Phil. 3:10).
The mark of death is upon the soul all the time, to bring it to the place where it
is always subordinate to the Spirit and never independently asserts itself.
Only the Cross, working in such a way, could make a man of the caliber of
Paul, and with the natural resources hinted at in Philippians 3, so distrust his
own natural strength that he could write to the Corinthians: "I determined not
to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was
with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech
and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in
the wisdom of men, but in the power of God" (1 Cor. 2:2, 3).
The soul is the seat of the affections, and what a great part of our
decision and actions is influenced by these! There is nothing deliberately
sinful about them, mind you. It is just that there is something in us which can
go out in natural affection to another person, and which, ungoverned by the
Spirit, can influence wrongly our whole course of action. So in the first of the
four passages before us the Lord has to say: "He that loveth father or mother
more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more
than me is not worthy of me. And he that doth not take his cross and follow
after me, is not worthy of me" (Matt. 10:37, 38). You note that to follow the
Lord in the way of the Cross is set before us as his normal, his only way for
us. What immediately follows? "He that findeth his soul shall lose it; and he
that loseth his soul for my sake shall find it" (Matt. 10:39, mg.).
The secret danger lies in that subtle working of the affections to turn us
away from the pathway of God; and the key to the matter is the soul. The
Cross has to touch that. I have to "lose" my soul in the sense in which the
Lord meant those words, and which we are seeking here to explain.
Some of us know well what it means to lose our soul. We can no longer
lightly fulfill its desire; we cannot just give in to it and gratify it: that is the "loss"
of the soul. We are going through a painful process to discourage what the
soul is asking for. And many a time we have to confess that it is not any
definite sin that is keeping us from following the Lord to the end. We are held
up because of some secret love somewhere, some perfectly innocent natural
affection diverting our course. Yes, human affection plays a great part in our
lives, and the Cross has to come in there and do its purifying work.
Then we pass to the verses in Mark chapter 8.1 think that is a most
important passage. Our Lord had just taught his disciples at Caesarea
Philippi that he was going to suffer death at the hands of the elders of the
Jews, and then Peter, with all his love for his Master, came up and protested,
saying, "Lord, do not do it; pity thyself: this shall never come to thee!" Out of
his love for the Lord he appealed to him to spare himself; and the Lord had to
rebuke Peter, as he would rebuke Satan, for caring for the things of men and
not the things of God. And then, to the multitude that gathered to him, the
word was spoken once more: "If any man would come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his
soul shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his soul for my sake and the
gospel's shall save it" (Mark 8:34, 35, mg.).
The whole question at issue is again that of the soul, and here it is
particularly of the soul's desire for self-preservation. There is that subtle
suggestion which says, "If I could be allowed to live I would do anything, be
willing for anything; but I must be kept alive!" There you have the soul almost
crying out for help. "Going to the Cross, being crucified—oh that is really too
much! Have mercy on yourself; pity yourself! Do you mean to say you are
going against yourself and going with God?" Some of us know well that, in
order to go on with God, we have many a time to go against the voice of the
soul—our own or other people's—and to let the Cross come in to silence that
appeal for self-preservation.
Am I afraid of the will of God? The dear saint whom I have already
mentioned as having had such an influence upon the course of my life, many
times asked me the question: "Do you like the will of God?" It is a
tremendous question. She did not ask, "Do you do the will of God?" She
always asked, "Do you like the will of God?" That question goes deeper than
anything else. I remember once she was having a controversy with the Lord
over a certain matter. She knew what the Lord wanted, and in her heart she
wanted it too. But it was difficult, and I heard her pray like this: "Lord I
confess I don't like it, but please do not give in to me. Just wait, Lord—and I
will give in to thee." She did not want the Lord to yield to her and to reduce
his demands upon her. She wanted nothing but to please him.
Many a time we have to come to the place where we are willing to let go
to him things we think to be good and precious—yes, and even, it may be, the
very things of God themselves—that his will may be done. Peter's concern
was for his Lord and was dictated by his natural love for him. We might feel
that Peter had a marvelous love for his Lord, sufficient even for him to dare to
question Jesus. Only a strong love could bring one to attempt that! Yes, we
think we understand Peter; but when there is purity of spirit without that
mixture of soul, we shall not be so readily led into Peter's mistake. We shall
more quickly recognize where the will of God lies, and shall discover there,
and there alone, our heart's true delight.
Once again the Lord Jesus deals with the matter of the soul in Luke
chapter 17, and now it is in relation to his return. Speaking of "the day that
the Son of man is revealed," he draws a parallel between that day and "the
day that Lot went out from Sodom" (verses 29, 30). A little later he speaks of
the "rapture" of the saints in the twice repeated words: "One shall be taken,
and the other shall be left" (verses 34, 35). But between his reference to the
calling of Lot out of Sodom and this allusion to the gathering of the saints to
him, there come these remarkable words: "In that day, he which shall be on
the housetop, and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them
away: and let him that is in the field likewise not return back. Remember Lot's
wife" (verses 31, 32). Remember Lot's wife! Why? Because "whosoever
shall seek to gain his soul shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose his soul shall
save it alive" (verse 33, mg.).
If I mistake not, this is the one passage in the New Testament that tells of
our reaction to the rapture call. We may have thought that, when the Son of
man comes, we shall be gathered to him automatically, as it were, because of
what we read in 1 Corinthians 15:51, 52: "We shall all be changed, in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." Well, however we
reconcile the two passages, this one in Luke's Gospel should at least make us
pause and reflect; for the emphasis is here very strongly upon one being
taken and the other left. It is a matter of our reaction to the call to go, and on
the basis of this, a most urgent appeal is made to us to be ready (compare
Matt. 24:42).
There is surely a reason for this. Clearly that call is not going to produce
a miraculous last-minute change in us out of all relation to our previous walk
with the Lord. No, in that moment we shall discover our heart's real treasure.
If it is the Lord himself then there will be no backward look. A backward
glance decides everything. It is so easy to become more attached to the gifts
of God than to the Giver—and even, I should add, to the work of God than to
God himself.
Let me illustrate. At the present time (1938 Ed.) I am engaged in writing
a book. I have finished eight chapters and I have another nine to write, about
which I am very seriously exercised before the Lord. But if the call to "Come
up hither" should come and my reaction were to be, "What about my book?"
the answer might well be, "All right, stay down and finish it!" That precious
thing which we are doing downstairs "in the house" can be enough to pin us
down, a peg that holds us to earth.
It is all a question of our living by the soul or by the spirit. Here in this
passage in Luke, we have depicted the soul-life in its engagement with the
things of earth—and, mark you, not sinful things either. The Lord only
mentioned marrying, planting, eating, selling—all perfectly legitimate
activities, with which there is nothing essentially wrong. But it is occupation
with them, so that your heart goes out to them, that is enough to pin you
down. The way out of that danger is by the losing of the soul. This is
beautifully illustrated in the action of Peter when he recognized the risen Lord
Jesus by the lake-side. Though, with the others, he was back for the moment
in his former employment, there was now no thought of the ship, nor even of
the net full of fishes so miraculously provided. When he heard John's cry of
recognition: "It is the Lord," we read that "he cast himself into the sea" to go to
Jesus.
That is true detachment. The question at issue is always, Where is my
heart? The Cross has to work in us a true detachment in spirit from anything
and anyone outside of the Lord himself.
But, even here, we are as yet only dealing with the more outward aspects
of the soul's activity. The soul giving reign to its affections, the soul asserting
itself and trying to manipulate things, the soul becoming preoccupied with
things on the earth: these are still small things, and do not yet touch the real
heart of the matter. There is something deeper yet, which I will try now to
explain.
THE CROSS AND FRUITFULNESS
Let us read again John 12:24, 25. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a
grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die,
it beareth much fruit. He that loveth his life (Greek "soul," as in the above
passage) loseth it; and he that hateth his life ("soul") in this world shall keep it
unto life eternal."
Here we have the inward working of the Cross of which we have been
speaking—the losing of the soul—linked with and likened to that aspect of the
death of the Lord Jesus himself which we have already seen depicted in the
grain of wheat, namely, his death with a view to increase. The end in view is
fruitfulness. There is a grain of wheat with life in it, but "it abideth alone." It
has the power to impart its life to others; but to do so it must go down into
death.
Now we know the way the Lord Jesus took. He passed into death, and,
as we saw earlier, his life emerged in many lives. The Son died, and came
forth as the first of "many sons." He let go his life that we might receive it. It
is in this aspect of his death that we are called to die. It is here that he makes
clear the value of conformity to his death, whereby we lose our own natural
life in order that, in the power of his resurrection, we may become lifeimparters, sharing thereafter with others the new life of God which is in us.
This is the secret of ministry, the path of real fruitfulness to God. As Paul
says: "We which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the
life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in
us, but life in you" (2 Cor. 4:11, 12).
We are coming to our point. In us who have received Christ, there is a
new life. We all have that precious possession, the treasure in the vessel.
Praise the Lord for the reality of his life within! But why is there so little
expression of that life? Why is there an "abiding alone?" Why is it not
overflowing and imparting life to others? Why is it scarcely making itself
apparent even in our own lives? The reason why there is so little sign of life
where life is present is that the soul in us is enveloping and confining that life
(as the husk envelops the grain of wheat) so that it cannot find outlet. We are
living in the soul; we are working and serving in our own natural strength; we
are not drawing from God. It is the soul that stands in the way of the
springing up of life. Lose it; for that way lies fullness.
A DARK NIGHT—A RESURRECTION MORN
So we come back to the almond rod, which was brought into the
sanctuary for a night—a dark night in which there was nothing to be seen—
and then in the morning it budded. There you have set forth the death and
resurrection, the life yielded up and the life gained, and there you have the
ministry attested. But how does this work out in practice? How do I
recognize that God is dealing with me in this way?
First we must be clear about one thing: the soul, with its fund of natural
energy and resource, will continue with us until our death. Till then there will
be an unending, day-by-day need for the Cross to operate in us, dredging
deeply that well-spring of nature. This is the life-long condition of service laid
down by Jesus in the words: "Let him deny himself, and take up his cross,
and follow me" (Mark 8:34). We never get past that. He who evades it "is not
worthy of me" (Matt. 10:38); he "cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:27). Death
and resurrection must remain an abiding principle of our lives for the losing of
the soul and the uprising of the Spirit of life.
Yet here too there may be a crisis that, once reached and passed, can
transform our whole life and service for God. It is a wicket gate by which we
may enter upon an entirely new pathway. Such a crisis occurred in the life of
Jacob at Peniel. It was the "natural man" in Jacob that was seeking to attain
God's end. Jacob well knew that God had said: "The elder shall serve the
younger," but he was trying to compass that end through his own ingenuity.
God had to cripple that strength of nature in Jacob, and he did so when he
touched the sinew of Jacob's thigh. Jacob continued to walk thereafter, but
he continued to be lame. He was a different Jacob, as his change of name
implies. He had his feet and he could use them, but the strength had been
touched, and he limped from an injury from which he would never quite
recover.
God must bring us to a point—I cannot tell you how it will be, but he will
do it—where, through a deep and dark experience, our natural power is
touched and fundamentally weakened, so that we no longer dare trust
ourselves. He has had to deal with some of us very strangely, and take us
through difficult and painful ways, in order to get us there. At length there
comes a time when we no longer "like" to do Christian work—indeed we
almost dread to do things in the Lord's Name. But then at last it is that he can
begin to use us.
I can tell you this, that for a year after I was converted I had a lust to
preach. It was impossible for me to stay silent. It was as though there was
something moving within me that drove me forward, and I had to keep going.
Preaching had become my very life. The Lord may graciously allow you to go
on for a long while like that, and to do so with a fair measure of blessing, until
one day that natural force impelling you is touched, and from then on you no
longer do it because you want to do it but because the Lord wants it. Before
that experience you preached for the sake of the satisfaction you got from
serving God in that way; and yet sometimes the Lord could not move you to
do one thing that he wanted done. You were living by the natural life, and that
life varies a great deal. It is the slave of your temperament. When
emotionally you are set on his way you go ahead at full speed, but when your
emotions are directed the other way you are reluctant to move at all, even
when duty calls. You are not pliable in the Lord's hands. He has therefore to
weaken that strength of preference, of like and dislike, in you, until you will do
a thing because he wants it and not because you like it. You may enjoy it or
you may not, but you will do it just the same. It is not that you can derive a
certain satisfaction from preaching or from doing this or that work for God,
and therefore you do it. No, you do it now because it is the will of God, and
regardless of whether or not it gives you conscious joy. The true joy you
know in doing his will lies deeper than your fluctuating emotions.
God is bringing you to the place where he has but to express a wish and
you respond instantly. That is the spirit of the Servant (Psalm 40:7, 8), but
such a spirit does not come naturally to any of us. It comes only when our
soul, the seat of our natural energy and will and affections, has been brought,
by the touch of the Cross, under his sway. Yet such a servant spirit is what
he seeks, and will have in us all. The way to it may be long-drawn, or it may
be just one stroke; but God has his ways and we must have regard for them.
Every true servant of God must know at some time that disabling from
which he can never recover; he can never be quite the same again. There
must be that established in you which means that from henceforth you will
really fear yourself. You will fear to move out on the impulse of your soul, for
you know what a bad time you will have in your own heart before the Lord if
you do. You have known something of the chastening hand of a loving God
upon you, a God who "dealeth with you as with sons" (Heb. 12:7). The Spirit
himself bears witness in your spirit to that relationship, and to the inheritance
and glory that are ours "if so be that we suffer with him" (Rom. 8:16, 17); and
your response to the Father of our spirits is: "Abba, Father."
But when this is really established in you, you have come to a new place
which we speak of as "resurrection ground." Death, in principle, may have
had to be wrought out to a crisis in your natural life, but when it has, then you
find God releases you into resurrection. You discover that what you have lost
is being given back, though not quite as before. The principle of life is at work
in you now: something that directs and empowers you, animating you with
fresh divine life. From henceforth what you have lost will be brought back, but
touched now with new values because under heaven's control.
Let me again make this quite clear. If we want to be spiritual people,
there is no need for us to amputate our hands or feet: we can still have our
body. In the same way we can have our soul, with the full use of its faculties;
and yet the soul is not now our life-spring. We are no longer living in it, we
are no longer drawing from it and living by it; we use it. When the body
becomes our life we live like beasts. When the soul becomes our life we live
as rebels and fugitives from God—gifted, cultured, educated, no doubt, but
alienated from the life of God. But when we come to live our life in the Spirit
and by the Spirit, though we still use our soul faculties just as we do our
physical faculties, they are now the servants of the Spirit; and when we have
reached that point God can really use us.
But the difficulty with many of us is that dark night. The Lord graciously
laid me aside once in my life for a number of months and put me, spiritually,
into utter darkness. It was almost as though he had forsaken me, almost as
though nothing was going on and I had really come to the end of everything.
And then by degrees he brought things back again. The temptation is always
to try to help God by taking things back ourselves; but remember, there must
be a full night in the sanctuary—a full night in darkness. It cannot be hurried;
he knows what he is doing.
We would like to have death and resurrection put together within one
hour of each other. We cannot face the thought that God will keep us aside
for so long a time; we cannot bear to wait. And of course I cannot tell you
how long he will take, but in principle I think it is quite safe to say this, that
there will be a definite period when he will keep you there. It will seem as
though nothing is happening; as though everything you valued is slipping from
your grasp. There confronts you a blank wall with no door in it. Seemingly
everyone else is being blessed and used, while you yourself have been
passed by and are losing out. Lie quiet. All is in darkness, but it is only for a
night. It must indeed be a full night, but that is all. Afterwards you will find
that everything is given back to you in glorious resurrection; and nothing can
measure the difference between what was before and what now is!
I was sitting one day at supper with a young brother to whom the Lord
had been speaking on this very question of our natural energy. He said to
me, "It is a blessed thing when you know the Lord has met you and touched
you in that fundamental way, and that disabling touch has been received."
There was a plate of biscuits between us on the table, and I picked one up
and broke it in half as though to eat it. Then, fitting the two pieces together
again carefully, I said, "It looks all right, but it is never quite the same again, is
it? When once your back is broken, you will yield ever after to the slightest
touch from God."
That is it. The Lord knows what he is doing with his own, and he has left
no aspect of our need unmet in his Cross, that the glory of the Son may be
manifested in the sons. Disciples who have gone this way can, I believe, truly
echo the words of the apostle Paul, who could claim to serve God "in my spirit
in the gospel of his Son" (Rom. 1:9). They have learned, as he had, the
secret of such a ministry: "We ... worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in
Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:3).
Few can have led a more active life than Paul's. To the Romans he puts
it on record that he has preached the Gospel from Jerusalem to Illyricum
(Rom. 15:19) and that he is ready now to go on to Rome (1:10) and thence, if
possible, to Spain (15:24, 28). Yet in all this service, embracing as it does the
whole Mediterranean world, his heart is set on one object only—the uplifting
of the One who has made it all possible. "I have therefore my glorying in
Christ Jesus in things pertaining to God. For I will not dare to speak of any
things save those which Christ wrought through me, for the obedience of the
Gentiles, by word and deed" (Rom. 15:17, 18). That is spiritual service.
May God make each one of us, as truly as he was, "a bondservant of
Jesus Christ."
Chapter Thirteen Comments and Questions
The Path Of Progress: Bearing the Cross
In this chapter Nee reminds us that the principle of death and
resurrection power was proved and taught by the Lord Jesus, even before He
died on the Cross. His own service was preceded by the symbolic acceptance
of death which was portrayed by His baptism in the waters of Jordan, and His
repeated appeal to His disciples to take up their own cross was His
declaration that only by this means can a man serve God as he should.
Unlike the once-for-all aspect, taught earlier, of the putting away of the
old man by crucifixion, this aspect of the Cross's work is shown now to be one
calling for constant renewal: the cross must be taken up daily. Nee has a
very helpful comment: 'The Cross has borne me: now I must bear it.'
Bible Readings: Matthew 10:34-39; Mark 8:32-35; Luke 17:32-34; John 12:24-
Chapter Sub-headings
The Basis of All True Ministry
The Subjective Working of the Cross
The Cross and Fruitfulness
A Dark Night - A Resurrection Morn
Questions
1. What was the significance of Christ's baptism at Jordan?
2. We are told that, in the wilderness temptations, Satan tried to induce
Christ to ‘act for Himself’. Does Satan tempt us in the same manner?
3. Was it necessary for Paul to be so weak and fearful at Corinth?
4. What special aspect of soul life is referred to in Matthew 10:34-39?
5. What special aspect of soul life is referred to in Mark 8:32-35?
6. What special aspect of soul life is referred to in Luke 17:32-34?
7. What special aspect of soul life is referred to in John 12:24-26?
8. 'Do you like the will of God?' To be a spiritual man do you have to like
it?
9. Is it true that in our case there is little expression of the life within? If
so, what is the possible explanation?
10. Is there a certain peril in presuming that some great crisis of
'breaking' has permanently weakened the strength of your soul life?
Chapter 14
The Goal of the Gospel
For our final chapter we will take as our starting-point an incident in the
Gospels that occurs under the very shadow of the Cross—an incident that, in
its details, is at once historic and prophetic. "While he was in Bethany in the
house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an
alabaster cruse of ointment of spikenard very costly; and she brake the cruse,
and poured it over his head.... Jesus said ... Verily I say unto you,
Wheresoever the gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, that
also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her"
(Mark 14:3, 6, 9).
Thus the Lord ordained that the story of Mary anointing him with that
costly ointment should always accompany the story of the Gospel; that which
Mary has done should always be coupled with what the Lord has done. That
is his own statement. What does he intend that we should understand by it?
I think we all know the story of Mary's action well. From the details given
in John chapter 12, where the incident follows not long after her brother's
restoration to life, we may gather that the family was not a specially wealthy
one. The sisters had to work in the house themselves, for we are told that at
this feast "Martha also served" (John 12:2 and compare Luke 10:40). (The
author here takes the fairly common view that the "house of Simon the leper"
was the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, Simon presumably also being a
relative of the two sisters.—Ed.) No doubt every penny mattered to them.
Yet one of those sisters, Mary, having among her treasures an alabaster
cruse containing three hundred pence worth of ointment, expended the whole
thing on the Lord. Human reasoning said this was really too much: it was
giving the Lord more than his due. That is why Judas took the lead, and the
other disciples supported him, in voicing a general complaint that Mary's
action was a wasteful one.
WASTE
"But there were some that had indignation among themselves saying, To
what purpose hath this waste of the ointment been made? For this ointment
might have been sold for above three hundred pence and given to the poor.
And they murmured against her" (Mark 14:4, 5). These words bring us to
what I believe the Lord would have us consider finally together, namely, that
which is signified by the little word "waste."
What is waste? Waste means, among other things, giving more than is
necessary. If a shilling will do and you give a pound, it is a waste. If two
grams will do and you give a kilogram, it is a waste. If three days will suffice
to finish a task well enough and you lavish five days or a week on it, it is a
waste. Waste means that you give something too much for something too
little. If someone is receiving more than he is considered to be worth, then
that is waste.
But remember, we are dealing here with something which the Lord said
was to go out with the Gospel, wherever that Gospel should be carried. Why?
Because he intends that the preaching of the Gospel should issue something
along the very lines of the action of Mary here, namely, that people should
come to him and waste themselves on him. This is the result that he is
seeking.
We must look at this question of wasting on the Lord from two angles:
that of Judas (John 12:4-6) and that of the other disciples (Matt. 26:8, 9); and
for our present purpose we will run together the parallel accounts.
All of the twelve thought it a waste. To Judas of course, who had never
called Jesus "Lord," everything that was poured out upon him was waste. Not
only was ointment waste: even water would have been waste. Here Judas
stands for the world. In the world's estimation the service of the Lord, and our
giving ourselves to him for such service, is sheer waste. He has never been
loved, never had a place in the hearts of the world, so any giving to him is a
waste. Many say: "Such-and-such a man could make good in the world if
only he were not a Christian!" Because a man has some natural talent or
other asset in the world's eyes, they count it a shame for him to be serving the
Lord. They think such people are really too good for the Lord. "What waste
of a useful life!" they say.
Let me give a personal instance. In 1929 I returned from Shanghai to my
home town of Foo-chow. One day I was walking along the street with a stick,
very weak and in broken health, and I met one of my old college professors.
He took me into a teashop where we sat down. He looked at me from head to
foot and from foot to head, and then he said: "Now look here; during your
college days we thought a good deal of you, and we had hopes that you
would achieve something great. Do you mean to tell me that this is what you
are?" Looking at me with penetrating eyes, he asked that very pointed
question. I must confess that, on hearing it, my first desire was to break down
and weep. My career, my health, everything had gone, and here was my old
professor who taught me law in the school, asking me: "Are you still in this
condition, with no success, no progress, nothing to show?"
But the very next moment—and I have to admit that in all my life it was
the first time—I really knew what it meant to have the "Spirit of glory" resting
upon me. The thought of being able to pour out my life for my Lord flooded
my soul with glory. Nothing short of the Spirit of glory was on me then. I
could look up and without a reservation say, "Lord, I praise thee! This is the
best thing possible; it is the right course that I have chosen!" To my professor
it seemed a total waste to serve the Lord; but that is what the Gospel is for—
to bring each one of us to a true estimate of his worth.
Judas felt it a waste. "We could manage better with the money by using
it in some other way. There are plenty of poor people. Why not rather give it
for charity, do some social service for their uplift, help the poor in some
practical way? Why pour it out at the feet of Jesus?" (see John 12:4-6). That
is always the way the world reasons. "Can you not find a better employment
for your life? Can you not do something better with yourself than this? It is
going a bit too far to give yourself altogether to the Lord!"
But if the Lord is worthy, then how can it be a waste? He is worthy to be
so served. He is worthy for me to be his prisoner. He is worthy for me just to
live for him. He is worthy! What the world says about this does not matter.
The Lord says: "Do not trouble her." So let us not be troubled. Men may say
what they like, but we can stand on this ground, that the Lord said, "It is a
good work. Every true work is not done on the poor; every true work is done
to me." When once our eyes have been opened to the real worth of our Lord
Jesus, nothing is too good for him.
But I do not want to dwell too much on Judas. Let us go on to see what
was the attitude of the other disciples, because their reaction affects us even
more than does his. We do not greatly mind what the world is saying; we can
stand that, but we do very much mind what other Christians are saying who
ought to understand. And yet we find that they said the same thing as Judas;
and they not only said it but they were very upset, very indignant about it.
"When the disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is
this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to
the poor" (Matt. 26:8, 9).
Of course we know that the attitude of mind is all too common among
Christians which says, "Get all you can for as little as possible." That however
is not what is in view here, but something deeper. Let me illustrate. Has
someone been telling you that you are wasting your life by sitting still and not
doing much? They say, "Here are people who ought to get out into this or
that kind of work. They could be used to help this or that group of people.
Why are they not more active?"—and in saying so, their whole idea is use.
Everything ought to be used to the full in ways they understand.
There are those who have been very concerned with some dear servants
of the Lord on this very ground, that they are apparently not doing enough.
They could do so much more, they think, if they could secure an entry
somewhere and enjoy a greater acceptance and prominence in certain
circles. They could then be used in a far greater way. I have spoken already
of a sister whom I knew for a long time and who, I think, is the one by whom I
have been helped most. She was used of the Lord in a very real way during
those years when I was associated with her, though to some of us at the time
this was not so apparent. The one concern in my heart was this: "She is not
used!" Constantly I said to myself, "Why does she not get out and take some
meetings, go somewhere, do something? It is a waste for her to be living in
that small village with nothing happening!" Sometimes, when I went to see
her, I almost shouted at her. I said, "No one knows the Lord as you do. You
know the Book in a most living way. Do you not see the need around? Why
don't you do something? It is a waste of time, a waste of energy, a waste of
money, a waste of everything, just sitting here and doing nothing!"
But no, brethren, that is not the first thing with the Lord. He wants you
and me to be used, certainly. God forbid that I should preach inactivity, or
seek to justify a complacent attitude to the world's need. As Jesus himself
says here, "the gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world." But
the question is one of emphasis. Looking back today, I realize how greatly
the Lord was in fact using that dear sister to speak to a number of us who, as
young men, were at that time in his training school for this very work of the
Gospel. I cannot thank God enough for her and for the influence of her life
upon me.
What, then, is the secret? Clearly it is this, that in approving Mary's
action at Bethany, the Lord Jesus was laying down one thing as a basis of all
service: that you pour out all you have, your very self, unto him; and if that
should be all he allows you to do, that is enough. It is not first of all a question
of whether "the poor" have been helped or not. That will follow, but the first
question is: Has the Lord been satisfied?
There is many a meeting we might address, many a convention at which
we might minister, many a Gospel campaign in which we might have a share.
It is not that we are unable to do it. We could labor and be used to the full;
but the Lord is not so concerned about our ceaseless occupation in work for
him. That is not his first object. The service of the Lord is not to be measured
by tangible results. No, my friends, the Lord's first concern is with our position
at his feet and our anointing of his head. Whatever we have as an "alabaster
box": the most precious thing, the thing dearest in the world to us—yes, let me
say it, the outflow from us of a life that is produced by the very Cross itself—
we give that all up to the Lord. To some, even of those who should
understand, it seems a waste; but that is what he seeks above all. Often
enough the giving to him will be in tireless service, but he reserves to himself
the right to suspend the service for a time, in order to discover to us whether it
is that, or himself, that holds us.
MINISTERING TO HIS PLEASURE
"Wheresoever the gospel shall be preached ... that also which this
woman hath done shall be spoken of" (Mark 14:9).
Why did the Lord say this? Because the Gospel is meant to produce this.
It is what the Gospel is for. The Gospel is not just to satisfy sinners. Praise
the Lord, sinners will be satisfied! but their satisfaction is, we may say, a
blessed byproduct of the Gospel and not its primary aim. The Gospel is
preached in the first place so that the Lord may be satisfied.
I am afraid we lay too much emphasis on the good of sinners and we
have not sufficiently appreciated what the Lord has in view as his goal. We
have been thinking how the sinner will fare if there is no Gospel, but that is
not the main consideration. Yes, Praise God! the sinner has his part. God
meets his need and showers him with blessings; but that is not the most
important thing. The first thing is this, that everything should be to the
satisfaction of the Son of God. It is only when he is satisfied that we shall be
satisfied and the sinner will be satisfied. I have never met a soul who has set
out to satisfy the Lord and has not been satisfied himself. It is impossible.
Our satisfaction comes unfailingly when we satisfy him first.
But we have to remember this, that he will never be satisfied without our
"wasting" ourselves upon him. Have you ever given too much to the Lord?
May I tell you something? One lesson some of us have come to learn is this,
that in divine service the principle of waste is the principle of power. The
principle which determines usefulness is the very principle of scattering. Real
usefulness in the hand of God is measured in terms of "waste." The more you
think you can do, and the more you employ your gifts up to the very limit (and
some even go over the limit!) in order to do it, the more you find that you are
applying the principle of the world and not of the Lord. God's ways with us
are all designed to establish in us this other principle, namely, that our work
for him springs out of our ministering to him. I do not mean that we are going
to do nothing; but the first thing for us must be the Lord himself, not his work.
But we must come down to very practical issues. You say: "I have given
up a position; I have given up a ministry; I have foregone certain attractive
possibilities of a bright future, in order to go on with the Lord in this way. Now
I try to serve him. Sometimes it seems that the Lord hears me, and
sometimes he keeps me waiting for a definite answer. Sometimes he uses
me, but sometimes it seems that he passes me by. Then, when this is so, I
compare myself with that other fellow who is in a certain big system. He too
had a bright future, but he has never given it up. He continues on and he
serves the Lord. He sees souls saved and the Lord blesses his ministry. He
is successful—I do not mean materially, but spiritually—and I sometimes think
he looks more like a Christian than I do, so happy, so satisfied. After all, what
do I get out of this? He had a good time; I have all the bad time. He has
never gone this way, and yet he has much that Christians today regard as
spiritual prosperity, while I have all sorts of complications coming to me.
What is the meaning of it all? Am I wasting my life? Have I really given too
much?"
So there is your problem. You feel that were you to follow in that other
brother's steps—were you, shall we say, to consecrate yourself enough for
the blessing but not enough for the trouble, enough for the Lord to use you
but not enough for him to shut you up—all would be perfectly all right. But
would it? You know quite well that it would not.
Take your eyes off that other man! Look at your Lord, and ask yourself
again what it is that he values most highly. The principle of waste is the
principle that he would have govern us. "She is doing this for me." True
satisfaction is brought to the heart of God when we are really, as people
would think, "wasting" ourselves upon him. It seems as though we are giving
too much and getting nothing—and that is the secret of pleasing God.
Oh, friends, what are we seeking? Do we seek for "use" as those
disciples did? They wanted to make every penny of those three hundred
pence go to its full length. The whole question was one of obvious
"usefulness" to God in terms that could be measured and put on record. The
Lord waits to hear us say: "Lord, I do not mind about that. If I can only please
thee, it is enough."
ANOINTING HIM BEFOREHAND
"Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.
For ye have the poor always with you, and whensoever ye will ye can do them
good: but me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: she hath
anointed my body aforehand for the burying" (Mark 14:6-8).
In these verses the Lord Jesus introduces a time-factor with the word
"beforehand," and this is something of which we can have a new application
today, for it is as important to us now as it was to her then. We all know that
in the age to come we shall be called to a greater work—not to inactivity.
"Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few
things, I will set thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord"
(Matthew 25:21; and compare Matthew 24:47 and Luke 19:17). Yes, there
will be a greater work; for the work of God's house will go on, just as in the
story the care of the poor went on. The poor would always be with them, but
they could not always have him. There was something, represented by this
pouring out of the ointment, which Mary had to do beforehand or she would
have no later opportunity. I believe that in that day we shall all love him as we
have never done now, but yet that it will be more blessed for those who have
poured out their all upon the Lord today. When we see him face to face, I
trust that we shall all break and pour out everything for him. But today—what
are we doing today?
Several days after Mary broke the alabaster box and poured the ointment
on Jesus' head, there were some women who went early in the morning to
anoint the body of the Lord. Did they do it? Did they succeed in their purpose
on that first day of the week? No, there was only one soul who succeeded in
anointing the Lord, and it was Mary, who anointed him beforehand. The
others never did it, for he had risen. Now I suggest that, in just such a way,
the manner of time may be supremely important to us also, and that for us the
question above all questions is: What am I doing to the Lord today?
Have our eyes been opened to see the preciousness of the One whom
we are serving? Have we come to see that nothing less than the dearest, the
costliest, the most precious, is fit for him? Have we recognized that working
for the poor, working for the benefit of the world, working for the souls of men
and for the eternal good of the sinner—all these so necessary and valuable
things—are right only if they are in their place? In themselves, as things
apart, they are as nothing compared with work that is done to the Lord.
The Lord has to open our eyes to his worth. If there is in the world some
precious art treasure, and I pay the high price asked for it, be it one thousand,
ten thousand, or even fifty thousand pounds, dare anyone say it is a waste?
The idea of waste only comes into our Christianity when we underestimate
the worth of our Lord. The whole question is: How precious is he to us now?
If we do not think much of him, then of course to give him anything at all,
however small, will seem to us a wicked waste. But when he is really
precious to our souls, nothing will be too good, nothing too costly for him;
everything we have, our dearest, our most priceless treasure, we shall pour
out upon him, and we shall not count it a shame to have done so.
Of Mary the Lord said: "She hath done what she could." What does that
mean? It means that she had given up her all. She had kept nothing in
reserve for a future day. She had lavished on him all she had; and yet on the
resurrection morning she had no reason to regret her extravagance. And the
Lord will not be satisfied with anything less from us than that we too should
have done "what we could." By this, remember, I do not mean the
expenditure of our effort and energy in trying to do something for him, for that
is not the point here. What the Lord Jesus looks for in us is a life laid at his
feet, and that in view of his death and burial and of a future day. His burial
was already in view that day in the home in Bethany. Today it is his crowning
that is in view, when he shall be acclaimed in glory as the Anointed One, the
Christ of God. Yes, then we shall pour out our all upon him! But it is a
precious thing— indeed it is a far more precious thing to him— that we should
anoint him now, not with any material oil but with something costly, something
from our hearts.
That which is merely external and superficial has no place here. It has
already been dealt with by the Cross, and we have given our consent to God's
judgment upon it and learned to know in experience its cutting off. What God
is demanding of us now is represented by that flask of alabaster: something
mined from the depths, something turned and chased and wrought upon,
something that, because it is so truly of the Lord, we cherish as Mary
cherished that flask, and we would not, we dare not break it. It comes now
from the heart, from the very depth of our being; and we come to the Lord
with that, and we break it and pour it out and say: "Lord, here it is. It is all
yours, because you are worthy!"—and the Lord has got what he desired. May
he receive such an anointing from us today.
FRAGRANCE
"And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment" (John 12:3). By
the breaking of that flask and the anointing of the Lord Jesus, the house was
pervaded with the sweetest fragrance. Everyone could smell it and none
could be unaware of it. What is the significance of this?
Whenever you meet someone who has really suffered—someone who
has gone through experiences with the Lord that have brought limitation, and
who, instead of trying to break free in order to be "used," has been willing to
be imprisoned by him and has thus learned to find satisfaction in the Lord and
nowhere else—then immediately you become aware of something.
Immediately your spiritual senses detect a sweet savor of Christ. Something
has been crushed, something has been broken in that life, and so you smell
the odor. The odor that filled the house that day in Bethany still fills the
Church today; Mary's fragrance never passes. It needed but one stroke to
break the flask for the Lord, but her action—that unreserved giving and the
fragrance of that anointing—abides.
We are speaking here of what we are; not of what we do or what we
preach. Perhaps you may have been asking the Lord for a long time that he
will be pleased to use you in such a way as to impart impressions of himself
to others. That prayer is not exactly for the gift of preaching or teaching. It is
rather that you might be able, in your touch with others, to impart God, the
presence of God, the sense of God. Let me tell you, dear friends, you cannot
produce such impressions of God upon others without the breaking of
everything, even your most precious possessions, at the feet of the Lord
Jesus.
But if once that point is reached, you may or may not seem to be much
used in an outward way, but God will begin to use you to create a hunger in
others. People will scent Christ in you. The most unlikely people will detect
that. They will sense that here is one who has gone with the Lord, one who
has suffered, one who has not moved freely, independently, but who has
known what it is to subject everything to him. That kind of life creates
impressions, and impressions create hunger, and hunger provokes men to go
on seeking until they are brought by divine revelation into fullness of life in
Christ.
God does not set us here first of all to preach or to do work for him. The
first thing for which he sets us here is to create in others a hunger for himself.
That is, after all, what prepares the soil for the preaching.
If you set a delicious cake in front of two men who have just had a heavy
meal, what will be their reaction? They will talk about it, admire its
appearance, discuss the recipe, argue about the cost—do everything in fact
but eat it! But if they are truly hungry it will not be very long before that cake
is gone. And so it is with the things of the Spirit. No true work will ever begin
in a life without first of all a sense of need being created. But how can this be
done? We cannot inject spiritual appetite by force into others; we cannot
compel people to be hungry. Hunger has to be created, and it can be created
in others only by those who carry with them the impressions of God.
I always like to think of the words of that "great woman" of Shunem.
Speaking of the prophet, whom she had observed but whom she did not know
well, she said: "Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which
passeth by us continually" (2 Kings 4:9). It was not what Elisha said or did
that conveyed that impression, but what he was. By his merely passing by
she could detect something; she could see. What are people sensing about
us? We may leave many kinds of impressions: we may leave the impression
that we are clever, that we are gifted, that we are this or that or the other. But
no, the impression left by Elisha was an impression of God himself.
This matter of our impact upon others turns upon one thing, and that is
the working of the Cross in us with regard to the pleasure of the heart of God.
It demands that I seek his pleasure, that I seek to satisfy him only, and I do
not mind how much it costs me to do so. The sister of whom I have spoken
came once into a situation that was very difficult for her; I mean, it was costing
her everything. I was with her at the time, and together we knelt down and
prayed with wet eyes. Looking up she said: "Lord, I am willing to break my
heart in order that I may satisfy thy heart!" To talk thus of heart-break might
with many of us be merely romantic sentiment, but in the particular situation in
which she was, it meant to her just that.
There must be something—a willingness to yield, a breaking and a
pouring out of everything to him—which gives release to that fragrance of
Christ and produces in other lives an awareness of need, drawing them out
and on to know the Lord. This is what I feel to be the heart of everything.
The Gospel has as its one object the producing in us sinners of a condition
that will satisfy the heart of our God. In order that he may have that, we come
to him with all we have, all we are—yes, even the most cherished things in
our spiritual experience—and we make known to him: "Lord, I am willing to let
go all of this for you: not just for your work, not for your children, not for
anything else at all, but altogether and only for yourself!"
Oh, to be wasted! It is a blessed thing to be wasted for the Lord. So
many who have been prominent in the Christian world know nothing of this.
Many of us have been used to the full—have been used, I would say, too
much—but we do not know what it means to be "wasted on God." We like to
be always "on the go": the Lord would sometimes prefer to have us in prison.
We think in terms of apostolic journeys: God dares to put his greatest
ambassadors in chains.
"But thanks be unto God, which always leadeth us in triumph in Christ,
and maketh manifest through us the savour of his knowledge in every place"
(2 Cor. 2:14).
"And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment" (John 12:3].
The Lord grant us grace that we may learn how to please him. When,
like Paul, we make this our supreme aim (2 Cor. 5:9), the Gospel will have
achieved its end.
Chapter Fourteen Comments and Questions
The Goal of the Gospel
I find it impossible to comment on this chapter without remarking that
Watchman Nee seems almost to be foretelling his own future. It is clear that
he was already able to apply this message on Waste to his own history, but
neither he who spoke so movingly nor we who listened with great profit, had
any idea of the future which lay before him.
For twenty years he was 'poured out‟ in suffering for Christ's sake. Men
misjudged, as they did in the case of Mary, but surely there was a fragrance
to God from Nee's prison cell. He need not have been in Red China. It was
out of a sense of loyalty to his many brothers and sisters in Christ that, when
he could easily have moved away from the Communist territory to fresh fields
of service, he decided rather to stay and suffer with them. Outside of China
there was a great open door; so many areas to be evangelized, so many
Christians to be instructed, that many even of Nee's friends felt it a waste for
him to submit to the inevitable betrayal and the bitter sufferings which awaited
him. Here he tells us that Christ intended the preaching of the Gospel to
issue in the kind of costly self-sacrifice made by Mary. To God's glory we
acknowledge that it did so issue in the life of Watchman Nee.
A preacher discovers that he is tested by his own words. Let him publicly
affirm that any given course is the will of God and he will be privately put to
the proof as to whether it is true in his own case. The same thing may
happen for those who study this book. If, after consideration of the final
chapter, you decide that God's greatest pleasure is served by those who are
ready to 'waste' themselves on Him, then you can be sure that in your own
circumstances, sooner or later, and probably sooner, you yourself will be
faced with the challenge.
*The principle of waste is the principle of power.' We have no means of
knowing the practical results in China of the breaking of Watchman Nee's own
alabaster box. We do know that the messages contained in this book we
have been studying have carried the fragrance of Christ into most countries of
the world. They continue to do so even after the speaker, having died in the
Lord, rests now from his labors.
Dare we honestly face Nee's final challenge? 'When we see Him face to
face, I trust that we shall all break and pour out everything for Him. But
today—what are we doing today?’
Bible Readings: Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9; John 12:1-8
Chapter Sub-headings
Waste
Ministering to His Pleasure
Anointing Him Beforehand
Fragrance
Questions
1. What makes us think that Mary was not wealthy?
2. Why did Jesus intend that this story should go wherever the Gospel
was carried?
3. What part did gratitude for the raising of her brother, Lazarus, play in
Mary's gift to Christ?
4. This gift was made as Mary sat at Jesus' feet. Find two other
references about her being at His feet? What lessons can we learn from
these?
5. What is the first question to be asked about our service for the Lord?
6. 'Have you ever given too much to the Lord?' Has anybody ever done
this?
7. What was the significance of the Lord's use of the word ‘beforehand'?
8. Can you suggest modern parallels to this act of breaking the flask of
alabaster for the Lord?
9. Mary's gift was gladly received. The rich young ruler's was regretfully
declined (Mark 10:21). What was the difference?
10. Find in 2 Corinthians 2 a reference to Christians being 'a sweet savor
of Christ'.